Through The Looking Glass
by A Girl Like You
Summary: A seemingly innocuous high school teacher Eliza Tanner from a sleepy town Mission, British Columbia, commits a mass murder in the class out of the blue. It is later discovered that her major visceral organs are reversed from their normal positions. Fringe team is called to investigate the matter. Set between 1x17 "Bad Dreams" and 1x18 "Midnight."
1. The Looking Glass House

**THE** shower handle was a bit jammed so Eliza had to press it slightly harder.

"Damn," she muttered a swearword under her breath.

Yet, soon enough, a soothing "skrooosh" sound was heard and she sighed in relief as the warm water engulfed her tired body.

"Well, it's not a royal palace, but at least the shower works well", she said out loud fifteen minutes later, upon leaving the cabin. Then she let out a short "brrr" sound and started to vigorously dry her long dark hair with the towel before walking towards the bedroom.

"Refreshing shower. Just what I needed. Moving to the new place, transporting all these things I own… This was hell of a day. I am so tired. Not to mention this unbearable heat", she licked her parched lips fixing the towel around her body.

Eliza then stood in front of the huge rectangular mirror for a bit longer. It looked as if it were embedded into the wall and it was big enough for her entire figure to show.

"Oh, this mirror is amazing. I've always wanted one this big". She let the towel drop to the floor as she stared at her now nude figure, critically analysing her own reflection.

"Well, well, well, Eliza. Not to be falsely modest, but you look amazing despite the fact you've just turned forty, my darling," she addressed herself. "No sign of the cellulite."

Her finger went through her wet and entangled hair and Eliza sighed as a sad expression roamed her face.

"Although, it still doesn't look like that you are impressing the male part of the populace. Especially not the guys that you like."

Her next step was to sharply slap herself.

"Oh, just stop it, Eliza! These dark thoughts lead to nowhere. It's just… better to try and fall asleep. Let's see if I dream something nice," she said, jumping on the soft bed. "It's a school day tomorrow and it would be for the best if I could get some proper rest. It will take some time getting used to this new place."

She wished a silent good night to herself in the emptiness of the obscure room and drifted away into the maze of her brain.

 **THE** digital clock on Olivia's nightstand was glowing soothingly green, showing exactly 6.18 a.m.

She was staring intently at it, unable to get up and yet unwilling to resume sleeping.

The case with Nick Lane had just came to a close and Olivia couldn't bear the fact she had the same morning routine of push-ups and stand-ups as he did.

Same scarce furniture adorned her apartment, same gray and black, plain, non-descript clothes lurked in her wardrobe.

Who was she, really?, Olivia wondered, reluctant to begin her day when the door behind her back screeched a little and she tensed.

 _It's probably just Ella, like every morning_.

What was strange about that morning was that Ella didn't even announce herself. Her steps were light and quiet and it made Olivia doubt her previous conclusion.

After all, her niece was a giggly bundle of joy who tended to land on her bed with apache screams.

 _Could it be…Rachel?_

 _But she is never awake this early._

Olivia's curiosity got the best of her and she swiftly turned around.

Her little sister let out a shrill gasp taking her right palm to her chest.

"Oh my God, Liv! You scared me to death! I was sure you were sleeping!"

Olivia sat up in bed with a smile.

"No. Not really, just staring at the clock. Then I heard someone enter and you know, I was just curious. You look funny when you're scared," Olivia added jokingly.

"I swear to God, my heart literally stopped beating there for a second!" Rachel was still trying to calm down and Olivia's eyes then fell on her puffy cheeks.

 _She was crying._

"What are you doing up so early?" she tried to make her voice sound more like a big sister's one than like an intrigued FBI profiler's one. "Is everything okay?"

"No." Rachel wheezed and breathed out heavily. "Nothing is okay and… I don't think it ever will be."

"What happened?" Olivia's voice was soft, her gaze patient and intent as her tiny pale palm enclosed on top of her sister's hand.

"I needed to talk to you before Ella wakes up. I…" she swallowed heavily casting her gaze on the beige carpet. "I need to ask a favour of you".

"Anything, Rach. You know it. What are the sisters for?"

"I thought that these… Three weeks are just going to be a visit but… We might need to stay at your apartment for some more… temporarily. Just until we get by, I promise. I don't wanna be a nuisance or crash at your place but I… I really don't know where else to go", tears started rolling down Rachel's face on their own.

Olivia reacted immediately by pulling her sister into a strong hug.

"You and Ella are family. You could never be a nuisance to me. And, besides, you can have the apartment to yourselves. I am almost never home anyway. Also, I love having you here. Ella's energy is contagious and she always brightens my day."

"Greg is filing for divorce."

Olivia pondered upon that fact in stunned silence, then simply said:

"I've never liked Greg. I know you so well and I have always felt deep down inside that he didn't deserve you."

"So now we don't have a place to stay and…Olivia…" Rachel couldn't seem to calm down. "He is also filing for custody."

"Rach. Rach, listen to me. I know that you are upset and scared but I can promise you one thing. You are not going to lose Ella. I won't allow it. I won't. Do you hear me? We will fight together for you to get full custody. I will support you in whatever you might need. That bastard won't win at the court."

"Livvy" Rachel was now positively choking in her own tears and gratitude. "Thank you so much. I don't know what we would have done without you."

She stared at her older sister thinking how strong, how reliable Olivia was. Her word was as good as gold.

And if Olivia promised something, you could damn well count on her.

That was incredibly reassuring, having her to lean on.

Ella chose precisely that moment to barge into the room.

"Aunt Liv, Aunt Liv!" she stopped dead in tracks when she saw Rachel in there.

"Mom? What are you doing here awake?"

"Well, I thought that it was selfish of me to sleep in every morning while you and Aunt Liv slave away and cook breakfast so I made some pancakes. How does that sound?" Rachel hastily removed the remaining tears from the corner of her eyes as she gave a quick loving hug to her daughter.

"Blueberry pancakes?" Ella's eyes were now open wide.

"Why yes! How did you guess" Rachel winked conspiratorially.

"I am soo hungry now! And later, can we play a game a friend showed me at school? Pretty please?"

"What game, Els?", Olivia chuckled, landing a loud kiss on her niece's cheek.

"It's called Mirror Image!"

"So what are the rules of this game?"

"Well, it's easy. One of us is original and the other two are copies. So everything the original does, you have to imitate the best you can! And then the original decides who was better at copying!"

"Sure, sounds like fun" Olivia now sat at the edge of her bed and stretched. "Let's go to the kitchen to have some of those Mum's famous pancakes, shall we?" she offered her hand to her niece and her phone rang at the very same moment.

Ella took a glance at the picture on her aunt's mobile phone and frowned when she saw a familiar bald head and stern, black face of Aunt Liv's boss, Mr. Broyles.

That usually meant a whole day ruined for the two of them. And yet, she knew better than to object. Her aunt was a very important person and she saved many people's lives. Ella could be patient. She knew how to be patient.

Olivia took a deep, exasperated sigh and pressed the green answering button as Rachel and Ella, with disappointed looks on their faces, were already tiptoeing out of the room and towards the kitchen.

Olivia's nostrils widened in hunger at the pancake smell.

 _I won't even get to try them._

"This is Dunham", she recited her famous mantra mechanically and with a hint of professionalism.

"Get the Bishops and agent Farnsworth and meet me at the runway in thirty." Broyles was short and informative as always.

"Excuse me, sir" Olivia asked for the clarification. "Did you just say: runway?"

"We'll be flying on a private jet. Pack only the essential things."

By the time bewildered Olivia had managed to ask something else, Broyles had long hung up and her pride didn't allow her to call back.

After all, that was one thing Olivia Dunham was good at: following orders.

She opened her drawer and pulled out the small suitcase under her bed; then Olivia methodically packed five pairs of underwear, five pairs of socks, five sweatshirts, five bras, five shirts, five pants and a spare pair of shoes.

Her eyes didn't leave her gun for a second as she trailed off to the bathroom to get her black vanity case.

Five minutes later, and after a short "goodbye" to her sister and niece, and "I don't know when I will be coming back", she was out of the apartment and inside of her black SUV.

Broyles didn't give any details about the case and that meant he would probably brief them on the plane.

It was his way to save time and Olivia understood it very well.

Drizzle was obstructing her view but Olivia wasn't about to surrender. She knew she could get to Peter's and Walter's hotel with her eyes closed by now.

There was no need to get Astrid. The girl was resourceful, Olivia gave her that. She was incredibly responsive and fast, and as far as Olivia was concerned, Agent Farnsworth was already moving toward the aforementioned runway.

Olivia then allowed herself a little smile thinking about how both Bishops were probably still fast asleep.

Also, how grumpy Peter would be when she knocks on their door for the umpteenth time in several month they had been working together.

Olivia then caught a glimpse of her stern, focused face in the car mirror and she promptly averted her gaze with a frown.

She never did look looking at herself in the mirror for too long and lately, this animosity had increased, after the episode with Nick Lane during which she firmly thought she was the man himself and making others kill their loved ones, no less.

Pushing that particular case aside and into the past where it actually belonged, she absentmindedly parked right in front of the hotel door.

 **PETER** was struggling to keep his balance.

His new red boots were mighty slippery and the smooth gleamy surface of the lake didn't help much. Actually, it wasn't helping at all.

The chubby boy muttered a swearword as he advanced to the center, now with increased focus and concentration.

Thumper, little gray rabbit from the Disney animated cartoon "Bambie" ran past him. He was wearing a gray waistcoat and muttering to himself, staring at a…

 _Pocketwatch?_ The boy wondered, amazed at the sight.

"Oh dear… Oh dear…. I will be late! I am going to be soo late!"

Then Thumper hopped on incredibly fast and Peter thought the rabbit was going the same way as he was.

 _There is a hole in the center of the lake. I know it. I remember. If I jump inside and fall down, I will be back home._

Thumper was already there.

He even turned around to glance at Peter as if inviting him to accompany him to the journey down below.

Seconds later and after a quick jump and a nod, the rabbit was gone and Peter shook his head violently without understanding.

The hole was no more either.

He fell on his knees, desperate, feeling his crimson scarf wrap uncomfortably around his neck.

"No! Please! Come back! Can you… Open the hole again? Heyyy! Can you hear me! Come back!"

His shouts and screams, that were becoming louder and louder, got lost in the incredibly loud and chilly wind.

The smooth surface of the lake was mute, and inaccessible.

There was no answer, no hole and most certainly no rabbits in waistcoats and with pocket watches.

Only his reflection stared back at him and Peter pressed his nose hard on the transparent ice.

His eyes narrowed instinctively as he started noticing slight differences.

His mirror image had dark brown hair where Peter's was toned with a reddish tinge. The boy before him had extremely pale blue eyes while Peter's were bluish green and with occasional spot of grey.

The other boy's face was freckled.

Yet, apart from that, everything about them was the same.

It was just that… Other Peter, the one from the lake, lacked colour. His face was ashen pale, his scarf azure, his gloves and his mittens dark shade of cobalt.

Something was wrong. It wasn't him. Peter knew it wasn't him. It was someone else.

A stranger wearing his face.

He banged on the ice surface with both of his glove-clad tiny fists.

"Open up! Let me in! I need to get in! I need to go home. Please. Just…I want to…go home!"

"I want to go home too!" the words echoed from the lips of Other Peter. "Open up! Let me out! I need to get out!"

They both started hitting the gelid ice layer as strong as they could, yelling simultaneously and the rhythmical sound their pounding produced hammered on Peter's brain.

 _Thump! Thump! Thump!_

He could almost envision Thumper's leg nervously banging on the snow while Bambie looked at him.

 _Thump! Thump! Thump!_

The lake was gone all of a sudden, replaced with the pale ceiling surface.

Everything from his dream was gun, except the noise.

The brain shattering sound was still there and Peter struggled to place it.

 _It's the door._

 _Olivia._ Was his second thought.

He sat upright in the improvised sofa bed and stared down at himself.

Thankfully, he had just had a shower mere couple of hours ago and he was wearing his Homer Simpsons pajamas.

 _Better that then opening half-naked as I usually do._

He hobbled over to the door, tripping over something that he later identified to be carefully arranged Legos. By the time he arrived to the door, Peter was yowling in pain just as he reached the handle.

"Walter! Where are you? Did you put these Legos here?" was Peter's pained interrogation but no matter where he looked, there was still no trace of his father.

 _I hoped he overcame his closet sleeping stage but I guess I was wrong._

Before opening the door, Peter stopped for a moment, gave himself and the entire room one last check-up and sighed, bracing himself.

He slowly took in Olivia's business-like figure and her sleek golden hair meticulously bound in a non-nonsense ponytail.

She wasn't fooling him, though. He could see she was about to burst out laughing.

Her eyes sized him up, firstly lingering on his chest where a figure of Homer Simpson was devouring a glazed doughnut and then lowering involuntarily to size up his crotch to what he smirked.

He was the first to speak.

"What?" Peter muttered groggily. "At least this is the one time when I open the door for my boss and I am actually decent. You laugh when I open the door bare chested, you laugh when I open them dressed? There doesn't seem to be a way to please you, Agent Dunham."

She merely giggled, placing her hand on her mouth. Then Olivia motioned towards the drawing.

"Cute."

"You like Simpsons?" that struck him as strange. As much as Peter Bishop loved seeing Olivia Dunham's smile and he loved it even more when he was the one making her mouth widen, he simply couldn't imagine her in a relaxed atmosphere where she would be laughing and joking in front of the TV to Homer Simpson's antiques.

"Everyone likes Simpsons." dimples appeared on her cheeks as she cast her gaze down.

"Actually, the real reason why I am wearing this is the following: every god damn night when I go to bed, Walter likes to sneak up on me and check if I am actually breathing."

"Ugh, that must be incredibly uncomfortable" Olivia grimaced.

"You got that right. It's all kinds of uncomfortable and creepy. Also, it's insomnia inducing, let me tell you that. Especially if he ate sweets just before doing so, and his sticky fingers, mouth and ears are all over my chest while he's listening in on the beating of my heart. Wearing this multifunctional pajamas, yours truly makes sure to create that extra protective layer between me and Walter's unwanted invasion."

"May I come in?" she inquired politely, distancing herself from the joke.

"By all means, my lady" Peter faux-bowed, stepping away from the door with a mischievous smile.

"Where is your father?" Olivia inquired curiously.

"To tell you the truth, I don't really know. But let me check in the closet, in the tub and under the bed."

Olivia's eyes widened in wonder when Peter explained some more.

"What? Those are his favourite hiding spots."

Walter choose precisely that moment to appear. He was completely naked and Peter and Olivia both groaned and simultaneously averted their eyes from the sight.

"I am dressed for once and Walter is naked. How's that for a change?" Peter joked but then was forced to rebuke the insane scientist.

"Ugh, Walter! What the hell are you doing?" Peter shouted as he looked back at his father.

"It's Tuesday", Walter replied sheepishly.

"It's Tuesday?" Olivia was bewildered.

"Oh, yeah, he always cooks breakfast naked on Tuesdays", Peter added apologetically.

"I was making blueberry pancakes" Walter said mournfully.

"Awww damn, those are my favourite. Too bad we won't get to eat them" Peter looked like a small sad faced child as he lamented the loss of his breakfast.

"If it's of any consolation to you, I didn't get my share of pancakes this morning either" Olivia told him with a melancholic smile.

Walter went on explaining, still in the nude.

"And as for your question about what I am doing: I am turning my back to you, son, so that you 'don't get a full eye view of my crotch' as you yourself have once so quaintly put it. I know I live in society, with people, and I too, can be considerate." He seemed to be proud of the lesson he had learned and of the behaviour alteration he had adopted.

Peter almost started rolling on the floor from laughter but Olivia's uncomfortable posture and averted, embarrassed gaze made him reconsider.

He decided to look authoritative and to behave like an adult parent of his peculiar elderly son.

"That's nice of you, Walter."

"Thank you son!", Walter replied enthusiastically, pleased for being praised.

"But, guess what?"

"What?"

"We both now have a full eye view of your butt, so how's that for a change? And me, for one, don't think that Olivia is enjoying at all."

"Don't be such a prude, Peter. She probably doesn't even mind. Agent Dunham most certainly knows how man's ass looks like, don't you, Agent Dunham?" Walter now turned to Olivia for comfort and she just closed her eyes fighting a smile.

"Go on Walter. Put on some clothes, I beg you", his son was trying to coerce him into at least looking decent.

"Peter!" was next Walter's exclamation. "Did you step all over these Legos?"

"Yeah, so what? What's a big deal? Honestly, they harmed me more than I harmed them."

"It's not that, dammit! Must you always be so small minded? I was building something important! It was an experiment regarding molecular structure and you ruined it! Now I have to do it all over again! You pay no attention to things, Peter, and I have told you hundreds of times…"

"Me? I pay no attention to things, Walter? Well that's just perfect, because you know what…You happen to stand naked in the room with two more people without giving a damn how both of them might be feeling as they look upon that particular sight!"

"Hey!" Olivia snapped them out of one of the many domestic squabbles they were used to having.

"What?" Both father and son snapped at her, irritated.

"We have a new case. It's exactly 6.45. We are expected at the airport runway at 7. A.M. I can get us there in seven minutes. You have seven minutes to pack."

After announcing those words, Olivia stood and watched the chaos develop in front of her, incredibly amused by the scene.

Peter was throwing boxers, pants, shirt and sweater at Walter who was trying to put them on hastily, ending up putting the sweater on backwards.

Olivia wasn't about to tell him that.

 _Walter will have time to change on a plane._

Peter was getting better at those sort of things, organizing everything they might need for their journey as he emerged victoriously from the bathroom with Walter's and his vanity cases.

The bag he chose was significantly bigger than Olivia's but what entertained her most was the way in which Peter was just throwing one garment on top of the other carelessly. Then he sat on the bag to push them all in.

They were so different, Olivia thought, but his boyish and devil may care demeanour made her laugh so often.

He did the same things as Olivia did, but in the other, more reckless way.

She had to admit she found it rather interesting, all that chaos the Bishop boys lived in.

 _Someone should write a book or film a TV show about the two of them._

 _It could be called The Bishops._

 _Loads of people would watch it for sure._

Peter's voice interrupted her train of thoughts.

"Okay, we're good to go."

"Peter," Olivia now positively started chuckling.

"What?" he scratched his nape, not seeing what Olivia was laughing about.

"You are still wearing your pajamas" now her eyes were smiling too and it became hard for Peter to focus on the words she was saying, such was the transformation on her face.

"Oh, crap. Let me just…" he reopened the bag and randomly pulled out a pair of pants and socks.

Olivia blushed when he removed the lower part of his pajamas hastily in front of her, as he was now putting on dark blue jeans.

Walter didn't fail to notice that.

"I don't see Agent Dunham protesting about getting a full view of your crotch so I don't see why she should say anything about mine, Peter," the old scientist was adamant.

"Walter, please. We are in a hurry, so…" Peter stopped the situation from developing further and Olivia was grateful to him for that.

"I suppose Broyles and Astrid will already be there waiting for us." Olivia added absentmindedly as Peter was fumbling with his shoelaces.

"Aspirin is coming too! How wonderful!", Walter seemed full of joy upon hearing those news and ran outside towards Olivia's SUV.

She leaned towards Peter to whisper in his ear and he enjoyed her proximity for the moment.

"Peter. You are still wearing an upper part of your pajamas."

"I know. But, I was thinking, seeing how Walter has his sweater on backwards, we can change on a plane." he winked at her. "Plus, I totally wanna see Broyles face when we meet up with him. It will confirm his opinion about us: The Bishops: one insane, one irritating."


	2. A Mission in Mission

" **SEVEN** o' clock on the dot. Nicely done", Broyles's deep bass voice and appreciative gaze reached Olivia and a gang just as they closed in on the seemingly abandoned runway.

He then sized up Walter's sweater and Peter's upper pajama part but apparently decided to refrain from commenting.

That was something new to Peter, who grinned surreptitiously.

 _He is probably pondering about them in his head,_ mad scientist's son smiled to himself. _Oh well, at least he changed enough to keep the snide remarks for himself. Too bad I can't say the same for me_ , Peter sniggered.

Walter broke apart from Peter and ran ahead to hug Astrid, thrilled that she was coming as well.

Peter wondered whether Astrid was equally pleased. Thinking back, he wasn't sure if he had ever seen her in the field.

 _This is gonna be a double edged sword for Astrid. Freedom and doing new stuff over… Running after Walter in an unfamiliar environment._

 _Thinking about it…It's gonna be exactly the same for me._

 _Yikes._

Olivia fell behind to ask Broyles a question and Peter, after glancing reluctantly over his shoulder to check up on her, approached Astrid and his father.

"Hey Astrid. What's up?" he smiled at her amicably.

She was wearing light blue jeans, a green t-shirt and a wind jacket. Her hands were in her jacket pockets so he concluded she was probably cold.

 _Walter and I aren't even wearing any jackets._

She packed lightly just like Olivia and Peter praised both of their speeds and efficacies inwardly.

"Hi. What's up, Homer?", she joked good naturedly. "I see you are still new in the whole this 'look after Walter thingy."

"If you are saying it because of his sweater, I totally knew it was backwards, I just let him be himself and ride out his rebel phase, so to speak", they both chuckled.

"Hey, hey, hey! Walter! Don't run after the plane! It's about to take off! What the hell are you doing?" Peter yelled incredulously.

"That hum and that gigantic wingspan", Walter said dreamily. "Nothing sings quite like an airplane about to take off.

"That's perfect. Can you move over to us now before you come up with another clever idea to get flattened?" Peter then turned back to Astrid with relief when he saw his father had obeyed him.

He was now inspecting the jet they were about to fly in, but Peter didn't care much about that since that particular plane still wasn't going anywhere.

"So. Any idea where we are heading, anyway?"

"Actually, none" the curly head lab assistant shook her head. "I guess the briefing will be on the plane. I just got here like…seconds ago".

"Sooo… There will be adventure and excitement, I suppose. Can't say that I wasn't dreaming about stretching my legs and leaving the lab for a while. Let's see what new horrorific horror awaits us, right?." Peter winked. "How do you feel about the trip?" he inquired, throwing his previous thought into conversational equation. "I have never seen you out in the field, not a far as I can remember."

"To be honest, Peter, I am looking forward to it. It's not that I don't have fun hanging around the lab and assisting Walter and you…"

"Mostly babysitting Walter, you are free to say so." Peter smiled.

"Not really, at least not that much anymore. I do have to admit the first couple of months were rough" Astrid rolled her eyes. "Yet now Walter is regaining his faculties at remarkable speed."

"I know what you mean. I noticed he is more and more self-sufficient. He now runs in front of me in the supermarket and shovels ten brands of cereals in our shopping basket all by himself. In the past, it was hard to get him out of the hotel room."

"And that's not all, Peter. Your father has an amazing mind and during these fifteen cases or so we have worked on together, I have learned a lot. It's just that I…guess I now crave for different kind of experiences."

"Wait a bit before you say so. As far as we know, some creepy event occurred somewhere and we will just be transferring our abilities elsewhere. So copycat Boston behaviour…who knows where."

"I am still hoping Broyles will let me go out in the field but we'll have to wait and see." Astrid was cautiously optimistic. S

he glanced at Peter looking for a reaction and noticed he wasn't even listening to her anymore.

He was furtively staring at Olivia, who was now releasing her hear from the constraints of the ponytail and shaking her head left and right so that the strands would fall evenly on her shoulders.

Astrid smiled a little.

 _He is in one of his off modes again and on autopilot._

Peter was so blatantly transparent to her sometimes when it came to Olivia.

She couldn't blame him. The blonde FBI agent was incredibly attractive, altogether with the sternness and firm moral beliefs.

Perhaps that was what made her even more attractive to Peter, Astrid pondered.

Olivia was the person Peter had always wanted to be and would have been, conceivably, if his upbringing and life experiences had been different.

Then again, she also caught Olivia numerous times looking at her lab colleague, at moments when he wasn't aware she was doing so.

Their behaviour amused Astrid a little too much for her own good.

They were obviously incredibly fond of each other and devoted to one another.

What impressed her the most regarding strength of Peter's feelings for Olivia was during the recent case with David Robert Jones.

 _I couldn't believe it when Walter told me Peter stayed with Olivia, in the building that was about to explode._

 _I would have to admire a person a lot, and trust her in order to do that._

 _It's as if he doesn't want to be in the world where she isn't._

 _Perhaps it's still too early for them, relationship wise._

 _But everyone who has ever been in the same room with them can feel the chemistry_ , she grinned.

 _I guess I will just sit and warm the bench, right next to Walter._

"Yeah" Peter added absentmindedly, seemingly agreeing with Astrid.

He had no idea what it was that she was saying, yet, it seemed like a good option for him to look as if he had been paying attention.

He knew he didn't fool Astrid because she looked down and smiled widely, shaking her head.

Peter blushed at being woman was incredibly observant.

He quickly found the way to wiggle out of the unpleasant situation.

"What do you say we go and get Walter? He's having too much fun over there as it is. Also, it's getting a bit chilly out here. Let's hope we'll get on the plane soon and fly to…Whichever mysterious place we have to fly".

"Peter" Walter approached his son. "Listen to me, my boy. Much as I love flying, I would love to be more independent. Instead of going on a private jet, why couldn't we go by car? I could try and retackle my driving skills!"

"Walter, don't you think it's a bit early for that?" Peter was cautious. "I know… I know…" he added when he saw the look on his father's face. "You are not a child, you will not be babied… But you have to admit that a close monitoring would do you good. We don't wanna have a road accident now, do we?"

"I suppose not." Walter was still sulking.

"Hey, don't take it too hard. Who knows how long the ride would be?" he glanced at Olivia and Broyles, who were nowe motioning them to approach. "Duty calls, I guess. Let's ask our bosses where we are actually going. Hey, Olivia! Where _are_ we going?"

"To Mission." Her answer was curt and professional.

"Well, yeah, it doesn't take a wise guy to realize we are going on a mission but where is the mission?", he laughed.

"In Mission", Olivia repeated, barely suppressing her lips from moving upwards and trying to stay serious as she was standing next to irritated and nervous Broyles.

"Hang on. Seriously? So…We are going on a mission in Mission? Talk about word play and puns." Peter cracked up and Astrid also smiled reluctantly.

"Yeah" Olivia confirmed with a faux serious nod.

"Well, Walter, you'll be glad we aren't driving for this one. Mission, British Columbia, is around 5 000 miles away from Boston. That's like, 50 hours by car. In comparison to five or six hours by plane… I think plane looks like a much better deal, don't you?"

"Yes, I suppose so" Walter nodded. "It is indeed a good thing that I enjoy a decent plane ride as well."

"Enough of the idle chit chat. I need you to board the jet as fast as you can" Broyles was categorical. "The time difference benefits us. Even though we will spend six hours on board and it will be 13 p.m. here in Boston, Massachusetts, we gain three hours since it will only be 10 a.m in Mission."

"Mission was near Vancouver, right?" Astrid shouted wishing to get her facts right; the jet motors were now on and hardly anything was heard.

"Exactly" Broyles replied as the jet door was closing behind them and they were now scanning the available seats. "44 miles following highway seven, exiting Vancouver. We shall land in Vancouver to remain inconspicuous; we will go by car posteriorly. I do not wish for local folk to begin pointing at federal jet landing in the middle of a small town. No sone should be snooping around. We will be less noticeable if we land at the busier Vancouver airport."

Once in the belly of the jet, Broyles chose to remain standing.

It made him feel more methodical and precise, more in control of the overall situation. That was how he preferred to do the briefings.

Other four members accommodated themselves immediately.

Peter and Walter sat opposite Astrid and Olivia.

Peter's gaze instinctively dropped on his old check out place that he made only his in his mind: an island of a bare skin that showed due to Olivia's three undone buttons on her shirt.

 _It's those little things I notice about her, that haunt me. And it occurs every single time we meet, and work on the case._

 _There is always something new, another layer of Olivia Dunham to unravel and revel in, that adds up to the overall familiarity that is her._

Olivia in turn subconsciously glanced at his hands as he flexed them and paid attention to Peter's long, lithe fingers and his arms coated with wisps of light brown hair.

They seemed to be the fingers of a crook but she couldn't forget how soothing they felt in her hair when Peter was reassuring her about Nick Lane case.

" _Agent Dunham. I need to talk to you. Listen, Olivia. I know what you are going through. You are running on No Sleep and on caffeine pills, am I right? Remember that I faked my way through grad school."_

" _Peter"_ she remembered how broken, how helpless she sounded and how she gave herself away to his arms for comfort _. "What is happening to me?"_

Olivia also recalled how at that precise moment Peter's body was trembling next to hers, how he pulled her closer, impossibly closer, into a protective, warm hug.

His heart was thumping incredibly fast as Peter shook a little and Olivia curled up next to it, her ear absorbing the soothing rhythm that was immediately healing her angst.

Olivia wasn't sure whether she was imagining it or Peter had let out a sigh at that precise moment.

His lips were buried into her hair, just like that; Olivia was at the point where she didn't even care, didn't want to pull away even though it was the smartest thing to do; she just needed someone to be there for her at times of eruption of her nervous breakdown.

And Peter was there.

He had always been there.

He had that calming effect on her ever since they met, no matter how strange it seemed to Olivia.

As they accommodated, Astrid immediately pulled out red vines from her brown bag to entertain fussy Walter. He was already nervous due to the take off.

"Here, Walter! What do you say to some early morning sugary goodness?"

"Agent Farnsworth! You are a ray of sunshine indeed. Thank you so much! Those are my favourite! How did you know?" Walter was ecstatic.

Peter leaned towards Astrid and Olivia felt a whiff of his cologne, swallowing for reasons unknown to her.

He whispered in sotto voce: "Do you really think it was a good idea to bring those for the road? Walter+sugar+being cooped up for six hours in here? Let me list you a number of things why this is a non-starter for us all. He will get hyperactive."

"I brought some board games. Don't worry, Peter. If Walter becomes too much to handle at certain point, I will distract him while you guys brainstorm." Astrid was optimistic as always.

"Mr. Bishop" Broyles's callous voice required his full attention. "Perhaps now it would be a good time for you to change."

Peter's ears and cheeks reddened as he got the look of the publicly rebuked boy. Nonetheless, he got up and went to the jet bathroom without the word.

 _Even I know some moments are inappropriate to crack a joke,_ he mused into his chin on his way back, having chosen a light blue shirt.

Broyles was getting ready to commence his debriefing. Everyone gave him their full attention.

"Now, listen up. First of all, you all know that past couple of months have been marked by the arrival of Agent Harris" Peter could almost hear Olivia grinding her teeth in irritation at the mere mention of the man's name. "He has been breathing down our necks and waiting for the Fringe division to make a wrong move. Agent Francis is distracting him as we speak, directing his attention elsewhere. He must not know we are leaving Boston to pursue this case."

"Hang on a second; is that the same guy who is constantly trying to stop us from investigating" Peter leaned forward with both interested and malevolent gleam in his eyes.

"Yeah" Olivia nodded with disdain. "He believes that, quote 'Fringe division is another excuse for us to justify the allocation of FBI resources and that it is a rogue division inside FBI, operating well outside the standard regulatory purview.'"

"I might add that he is pursuing a certain personal vendetta against Agent Dunham" Broyles added. "He blames her for being prosecuted for the sexual assault he committed."

"So..." Astrid's forehead creased as Walter was pensively chewing on a red vine and quietly staring through the window. "He must not find out about the case."

"Under no circumstances." Broyles was adamant.

"That's a fair heads up," Peter nodded. "So... what's the mission... In Mission?" he smiled widely. Peter knew it was a lame pun but he also knew that it will be some time before his clingy childish brain was able to let go of that particular construction.

"I was just getting to that" Broyles pierced him with a glare which was a clue for Peter to shut the hell up. "On the table in front of you, you shall find a prospect about this town. It is a sleepy, quiet place, a district municipality in the Lower Mainland region of the province of British Columbia, Canada which currently contains a little bit over 30 000 inhabitants. There were not too many crime reports, just an occasional petty robbery…Until just this morning" he threw a newspaper at them for, as Peter thought inwardly, a more dramatic effect.

Astrid read the headline out loud.

"High school teacher Eliza Tanner commits a mass murder out of the blue, killing three students and injuring several others. Security guard forced to react and kill her."

"Well that's a first one," Peter seemed genuinely surprised. "It's usually an enraged student with a firearm who all of a sudden, feeling misunderstood by the whole world, barges into the hated school and starts gunning down his classmates and teachers that did him wrong. I guess this adds a whole other layer to a definition of a school massacre."

"I, for one, understand her" Walter was still absently chewing on his sweet. "Some particular students at university used to bring me to an enraged state of mind, due to their disrespectful behaviour and their incapability to grasp the simplest concepts of the matter I thought. I have, more than once, been tempted to do the sam…" he didn't manage to complete the sentence since Peter shut his mouth with his entire palm, grinning widely and apologetically at others.

"Walter. Don't you think it would be best if you kept such thoughts for yourself? My father. Always a joker. And remember, Walter, you did get your little vendetta. You experimented on your students. How do you think that felt, huh? No big deal for them, for sure?" his tone was sardonic yet accusatory.

Peter noticed Olivia was completely detached from their conversation as she scanned the newspaper article in its entirety.

 _She is studiously analysing the case. And probably using that photographic memory of hers that turns me on so much._

"It says here…" she started reluctantly, without separating her eyes from the paper. "That everyone who knew Eliza Tanner thought her to be a kind and quiet person, from neighbours to her closest friends."

"Well, that's usually how it goes" Peter added. "Whenever the people who knew the mass murderer are faced with the question ´Do you think he/she would be capable of such a horrendous act?´ most of them reply by: ´No, we would have never dreamed of it, he was such a nice person, he would always say good morning to us in the street and we got along fabulously…Who would have known…´ And well, something along those lines."

"That's true" Olivia agreed. "Perhaps we need to do a deeper profiling before we can judge anything about this case" her eyes fell on the article again and she focused, frowning.

"Excuse me, I don't understand one thing" Astrid was the next to speak. "It's horrible, what happened, the school massacre and the dead children…But isn't this supposed to be a job for the police?"

"And not even" Peter joined in. "They know who the killer is and what is more, the killer has been dealt with in an… Unpleasant way, but still, dealt with" he added, puzzled. "Why do they need us there?"

"I haven't found anything in this article that might indicate the requirement for the assistance of Fringe Division", Olivia confirmed.

"The article doesn't have all of the facts. Not everything was made public in order not to frighten the residents. You see, after Eliza Tanner's body was recovered and taken to the morgue for an autopsy analysis, something incredible was discovered. Her major visceral organs were reversed from their normal positions." Broyles provided them with an additional information.

"And that is why we had to fly all the way to this…Mission?" there was contempt in Walter's voice. "For the simple situs inversus?"

"What is situs inversus, Walter?" Olivia leaned toward the elder scientist, intrigued.

"Situs inversus (also called situs transversus or oppositus) is a congenital condition in which the major visceral organs are reversed or mirrored from their normal positions. The normal arrangement of internal organs is known as situs solitus while situs inversus is generally the mirror image of situs solitus." Walter added absent mindedly in a professor-like tone.

Olivia desperately looked towards Peter for the simpler translation that he always knew how to provide almost instantly.

 _It's a good thing that he speaks Walter_ , she thought for the umpteenth time ever since they started working together.

"Yeah, that's pretty much the text book definition. To simplify, that means that… Her heart and spleen were on the right side, her liver on the left side… So all the organs she has are jumbled on the inside, and in a different…Opposite place from where we have it. There are some famous people who are documented cases of situs inversus, take Enrique Iglesias or…Catherine O'Hara, for example" Peter explained.

"That is what I just said, Peter" Walter seemed irritated by his son's clarification and simplification. "Minus the mention of those famous people's names" he paused, not remembering whom was it that Peter named moments ago.

"Why do you think it's pointless for us to go there, Walter?" Astrid was interested in his opinion.

"Because it's a congenital condition!"

"Means you are born with it" Peter added and Olivia nodded in thanks. "He's got that right. I mean, if she was born like that, why would that be strange? It is an anomaly, granted, but a plausible bodily anomaly and it would have nothing to do with her going gunslingerish on her class. Unless…"

"Unless what? What are you thinking?" Olivia leaned interestedly towards him.

"Well. Unless it wasn't congenital and it was caused by something else. Although I don't see how that could be possible. She must have been unaware of her unusual anatomy so no one ever noticed anything, not even herself."

"That can easily be checked!" Walter jumped up from his seat enthusiastically. "We must look into her medical records and see whether she had in fact sought medical attention for an unrelated condition, such as a rib fracture or a bout or appendicitis. The condition might also have been discovered during the administration of certain medicines or during tests such as barium meal or enema. Good job, A +, boy!"

Peter smirked, pleased.

"So. If it was congenital, it's back to Boston we go. If it's not… Then…We'll have our hands full" Peter scratched his nape, reaching for the prospect, reading out loud:

"In the heart of the Fraser Valley is Mission. It wass named after St. Mary's Mission, founded in 1861. The surrounding lakes and mountains provide fishing, hiking, camping and skiing for the outdoor enthusiast. Access from Vancouver is either along the TransCanada Highway and turning north at Abbotsford or following Highway 7 (71 km/44 mi.). There are a number of hotel/motel accommodations in town plus private

and provincial campsite close by."

"Sounds like a good place to go on vacation" said Astrid.

"Did I hear mention of camping?" Walter exclaimed. "I used to love camping! Belly and Nina and Elizabeth and I, we all went camping into the woods near Boston. We took you once too, Peter! You used to be so afraid of deer, because of their horns and hooves"

Olivia elbowed him gently and teased him mockingly:

"You were afraid of deer? But they are such gentle creatures!"

"Um… I have to disappoint you, Walter, but I have no recollection whatsoever of such event or of my fear of deer" Peter defended himself the best he could although inwardly he knew his father had already embarrassed him, as always.

"Oh, I hope we will be able to stay in that provincial campsite!" Walter went on, unfazed.

"Me and Afro could grab a tent and Peter, you and Agent Dunham could share the other one!"

Peter went red in face and tried to smooth over the situation.

"I don't think we will be staying in the tent, Walter. We will need to be in an urban area, next to the laboratory that will probably be provided for us." He felt the change of the subject was in order.

Broyles rejoined them precisely at that moment.

"A Canadian liaison will wait for us upon our arrival. He will provide us with accommodation and other necessities. Laboratory will be among them should you so require. Now get some rest. There is still plenty of time before we land."


	3. Canada, eh?

**PETER'S** mouth widened in a smirk. "A Stetson hat Mountie in red and black, eh? I respect them a lot. They always do get their man in the end. Getting one of them to help us will greatly benefit the party."

Broyles wasn't too pleased with the tone of voice Peter used. "I would be grateful to you, Mr. Bishop, if you didn't mock the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Their rate of efficacy is significantly higher than the rate of efficacy of police in the States and that is a fact."

"First of all: pardon me, Mr. Broyles" Peter accentuated the word "Mr." heavily. "Isn't that what I've just said? They always get their man? And second of all: if they are so efficient and know-it-alls, why do they need our help then?" he wouldn't budge from the conversation even though Olivia's stern gaze warned him to cut it out.

She knew fully well Broyles wasn't as patient as she was with Peter. He simply didn't know the Bishops that well.

"Perhaps it was my imagination, but the way you said it suggested disrespectfulness. Bear in mind that RCMP is the federal and national police force of Canada, and is Canada's equivalent of the FBI. The popular image of the Mountie riding a horse in a bright red jacket and funny hat comes from witnesses of their parade dress. The real RCMP however, is a well-funded and terrifying paramilitary force that has an almost unbelievable amount of power. Not only is the RCMP well prepared for terrorism, hostage taking, and acting like regular cops in most of Canada, but they also train foreign police forces, and run special counter-crime operations abroad. On top of that, the RCMP is unique in the world as a national, federal, provincial, and municipal policing body. If that weren't enough, the RCMP also has its own small air force, navy, and train, not to mention thousands of vehicles and snowmobiles" Broyles's tirade seemed neverending. "So don't buy the whole "funny hats and red jackets" thing they put on as a facade." he concluded.

Peter seemed as if he were going to open his mouth again to add yet another of his venomous comeback comments.

Olivia interrupted him with a hand gesture under the pretext of inquiring more information from Broyles.

"Who is the liaison that will be working with us, Sir?"

"His name is Liam Murray. He is a constable of Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Born and raised in the Northwest Territories. He now works as the Deputy Liaison Officer at the United States consulate in Vancouver. He will be our eyes and ears while we are in Mission." Broyles passed on the photograph of the man in his late twenties, as it seemed. He had a rye colored hair and warm brown eyes and he seemed like a young obedient boy.

"His looks say ´I aim to please´" Peter laughed.

"And…Sir…I don't know if you have heard the conversation Walter and Peter just had. They were wondering whether the state of the organs of the late Eliza Tanner was deemed congenital or not." Olivia stopped what threatened to become another row yet again.

"The medical files indicate they were not, in fact. We have recovered an X-Ray she had just a month before the yesterday's incident and all her internal organs appear normal. It's up to us to determine the cause of the change. The who, what, and why-that's you", he motioned, as usual, towards the lab team and they all nodded.

"This is one of the most interesting things I have ever had to analyse indeed" Walter sounded enthusiastic. "I can't wait to get my hands on that body! Now, son, I would like to posit a hypothesis that our murderess/victim was in fact being exposed to something that promptly rearranged her organism's internal structure."

"And what if the solution is far simpler? Maybe she simply has a twin sister?" Peter quipped.

"No twin sister, that was among the first things we checked" Broyles explained. "We have been doing so ever since John Scott's case and the twin brothers from the flight 647." were the last thing that Broyles said to a group before he disappeared behind the green curtain and into his own compartment.

Peter returned to brainstorming related to the case.

"As for your suggestion; I don't see how that would be possible, Walter. It would have had to be something unheard of, some kind of strange technology or chemical agent, yet…"

"Open your mind, Peter, or someone else might open it for you! Broaden your internal horizons, boy!"

"Peter, it's true that whenever we would think that something was impossible, Walter was there to perform some kind of scientific miracle" Astrid was on mad scientist's side this time. "So perhaps it's for the best if we wait till we get there and see how everything will unfold."

"You've got a point there", he agreed tiredly. "Besides, I can't say I am not intrigued to see how Canada is for real."

"That's surprising" Walter's tone sounded a bit snarky and Peter immediately caught it, rounding in on him.

"What was that supposed to mean?"

"What?" was his father's seemingly innocent reply.

"That, Walter, that remark in particular! Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about!"

"I was merely implying that you travelled extensively so I was surprised by the fact that you haven't actually been to Canada."

"You are disappointed I haven't made more out of my life, aren't you?"

"I never said that" Walter's lips were unusually tightened and thin now.

"But you sure as hell meant it!"

"Peter" Olivia placed her palm over his in an attempt to calm him.

The last thing they needed now was a commotion in group.

"I am fine, Olivia. I can handle this." Peter relaxed and turned the conversation into a jovial banter. "I heard too many stereotypes about Canada so I am not sure what to believe in."

"Everyone has" Astrid added. "I mean, what are the first things that come to your mind when you think of Canada?"

Olivia smiled.

"Hockey".  
Astrid was next.

"Ice skating".

Peter liked the playful attitude of his female colleagues.

"Oh, so is that how we're going to play it? In that case…Strong beer. Which, by the way, I can't wait to taste. You know what Canadians say: 'When we're not drinking coffee, we're downing some beer.' Canadians per capita consumer of beer in 2015 was 63.34 litres per person – putting Canada as number 25 on the list of the top 25 per capita beer countries in the world."

"Country music" Walter whispered, joining in.

"Tim Hortons" it was Olivia's turn.

"Sorry?" Astrid looked puzzled.

Peter served as the interpreter once more and he didn't miss the opportunity to tease Olivia.

"I know I speak Walter and that you guys usually put me to use when I am supposed to translate his scientific mumbo jumbo but I didn't know I speak Dunham now as well."

"So you know what Tim Hortons is?"

"Of course. It's a restaurant chain. If you ever want to experience what true love is like, ask a Canadian about Tim Hortons. They are dedicated to their relationship with the franchise. Just how dedicated? According to Tim Hortons, 'bout 15 per cent of Canadians visit one of the 3,500 Tim Hortons locations in Canada every day."

"I have always wanted to try Tim Hortons coffee" Olivia added.

"It's a major chain" Peter confirmed. "Combine Starbucks, Second Cup, Timothy's World Coffee and Bridgehead and the number of Tim Hortons franchises still outnumbers them in Canada."

"You know a lot about it" Olivia praised him.

"Not having the opportunity or not being able to physically travel somewhere doesn't preclude me from wishing to find out more about the place. Especially with the today's glory of the internet. Information was readily available and mine for the taking. I've seen loads of videos related to all North American countries way back when. I like learning about new cultures."

Peter then turned to his father.

"But you, for one, have travelled even more lengthily than me, Walter. Am I right? What are your impressions about Canada?"

"I only visited Eastern Canada, back in the 70-s."

"You did?" Astrid was curious.

Walter never talked that much about his past life and mere fragments of it would just occasionally resurface while they were working on some case and that would sometimes jog his memory, but nothing more.

She wondered whether Walter was feeling happy when he would stumble upon those elements from his past that he thought he had lost forever.

"Oh, yes. Those were the days. I went beaver hunting. Of course, in those days, beaver meant something else entirely" he winked at them and the three started simultaneously rolling their eyes, blushing or exclaiming how gross that remark was.

"Talking about Canadian stereotypes that are actually true… I don't understand why Broyles told us to pack lightly. I heard the weather is even worse than in Boston." Astrid subconsciously hugged herself.

"I checked the forecast at the runway" Olivia nodded responsibly and Peter inwardly admired the fact she had remembered such a thing and had time to do so. "It says that for the week between 22 of April of 2009 and 29 of April, the maximum daily temperature will be around 13 degrees Celsius, which is around 54 Fahrenheit; the weather will be mostly cloudy but not rainy. We should be fine with the jackets we brought, the weather is just like in Boston."

"I guess we're lucky we aren't visiting Mission in winter. Even in July and August max temperatures are around merely 25 degrees. I mean, 77." Peter frowned. "Of course, it's not like an entire country is a frozen tundra wasteland, where citizens live in igloos year-round; if you head south near the U.S. border there are four clear seasons. Still, the winters here are merciless. No joke. I suppose Bostonians and Canadians are more resilient to cold at any rate" he shrugged.

"And what do you say about their chronical desire to constantly apologize?" Astrid added with a smile. "I think it's kind of cute."

"It does remind me of British people." Walter was the one to add the remark. "When Belly and I walked the streets of London, they would constantly elbow us and as they run past, they would say ´sorry´, ´sorry´. The strangest thing was… They didn't look like they were sorry at all. They wouldn't even look at us as they hurriedly passed us by, preoccupied with their own thoughts."

"Actually Walter, your analogy makes sense. My linguistics teacher at university told us that perhaps Canadians have in fact inherited the British sense of being somewhat self-effacing and apologetic. And Americans tend to be perhaps more self-confident… Or more assertive…" Astrid pondered.

"I actually read a book called ´How to be a Canadian´" Peter laughed. "It was written by Ferguson brothers and you sort of have a whole chapter in there on the subject of sorry."

Olivia was pensive. "But, I mean, the way they apologize is probably something people should take into account as well, right? We might think that Canadians are super nice and of course, we don't interact with them on daily basis so we are not really accustomed to talking to them. We might not see the subtle difference behind each ´sorry ´they say."

"Hey, yeah", Peter leaned towards Olivia and placed his hand over his inconspicuously; his inner self rejoiced when he noticed she didn't pull away.

 _She is finally comfortable with me touching her._

"There was this…" he swallowed, enjoying the little clandestine hand-on-hand moment he was having with Olivia. "There was this article in the newspapers that wrote about some Canadian woman who was crossing the street. I mean, she was in her right to do so, the light was green and so on and so forth."

Olivia straightened up and leaned back in her seat. "So, what's the catch?" Even though she had eventually pulled away from Peter's touch she did it because she thought it was for the best; the gleam in Walter's eye and Astrid's knowing smile when their hands touched was a little bit too much to bear.

"The truck that hit her was speeding and the driver didn't even bother to check whether the light was green for him or not. So, he hits a woman while braking; he rolls down the window, and she somehow manages to stand up…"

"Wait, she could walk after all that?" Astrid was appalled.

"Well, he didn't hit her that much, I guess" Peter went on. "So what she does is come towards the truck window and…"

"If he had done such a thing to me" Walter foamed, still nibbling on liquorice. "I would have told him that he is a miscreant and a vandal who had almost gotten me killed!"

"I am sure you would, Walter" Peter chuckled. "And I can totally imagine you saying that to him in those very words."

"So what did she say?" Olivia was incredibly intrigued about the plot and Peter thought it made her look like an eager little girl.

"You have three guesses and the first two don't count" he used his famous replica.

"She said ´sorry´?" Olivia was aghast. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, she did. But I was going to relate to your previous rant how we don't see the subtle differences behind each ´sorry´ they say. So maybe she didn't mean ´sorry I was in your way´, maybe she meant ´sorry for you being such an as*hole, sorry for your mother who had to put up with you as you were growing up´ and so on and so forth." Peter knew he triumphed when everyone aboard laughed.

"I, for one, look forward to daring explorations regarding Canadian cuisine!" Walter was, as always, obsessed with food. "I simply must try all of their traditional meals and accumulate the best recipes. Oh, to taste heavenly poutine, bannock and butter tarts! I know they are famous for Saskatoon berry pies as well."

"I wanna try that Montreal-style smoked meat" Peter said as his mouth watered as well. "They salt a beef brisket and then cure it for a week with a range of spices before it's smoked and steamed to perfection."

"I don't know if we'll have much time for fine dining" Olivia was trying not to smile but it was pretty hard. The laughter was contagious.

"Oh, don't worry, Agent Dunham" Walter looked eager. "It will not influence in the time we dedicate to the case, we can assure you that. We shall eat and bake in the lab simultaneously."

"They do that?" Olivia glanced towards Astrid with a repulsed facial expression.

"Next to all those dead bodies and all", junior Agent Farnsworth confirmed, nodding. "I find it incredibly gross. Both of them, too. Like father like son."

"Oh come on, don't say that" Peter protested, just so say something for the sake of saying it. Though, one could see he wasn't that bothered by such comparisons anymore. He leaned back happily in the seat and stifled the yawn.

 **NEXT** time Peter opened his eyes, the jet had come to a halt. He was vaguely aware of the commotion around him and it took him couple of seconds to adjust to his surroundings, and to figure out what was happening.

"Peter" Olivia said tenderly. "We have landed."

"Already?" he yawned in earnest now and it reminded Olivia of a yawn of some big sleepy cat. "How long was I out?"

"Around three hours" her look told him all he needed to know.

"And did any of you… You know…Sleep for that long?" Peter was a bit embarrassed.

"Not really. Walter mostly dedicated himself to eating, Astrid was reading and I went in the back to clear some things with Broyles. There was also a turbulence, but you didn't flinch" Olivia seemed amused by his profound sleep.

"That's what living with Walter will do to you. It's like living with a one year old, but forever; with a one year old that never grows up. So I suppose when my brain discovered someone else is entertaining and looking after Walter, it immediately shut down."

"You missed quite an invigorating flight, my son. The turbulence was like being in the belly of the seizing whale. I once squealed like a little girl" Walter sounded quite enthusiastic.

"Well that doesn't sound like I missed much, and even if I did miss something, it wasn't of such a big deal" Peter smiled. "I am sure that your screams went well with the rest of the passengers."

He glanced through the window.

"Well, to me, it doesn't look like we ever left Boston. Cloudy here, cloudy there."

"It's true" Olivia agreed. "I would have appreciated some change of the scenery. I suppose that the difference in food, culture and customs will have to suffice."

"That's something I would say" Peter elbowed her amicably. He was lazily scanning the Vancouver runway trying to notice the differences between US and Canadian airport. Grey buildings and grey pavement stared back at him and he concluded there was no difference for now.

Then his heart stopped as he double checked the site. Right next to the wing of a plane that had just landed, there was a somewhat familiar figure of a rigid, silent man in an impeccably sewn dark grey suit, with a fedora in his left hand that he held on the chest. The man in question was unmistakably bald and his right hand held some kind of binoculars or goggles, Peter wasn't quite sure which.

 _Is that an… Observer? It can't be. What is more… He seems as if he is looking straight towards our jet._

Seconds later, the man was gone.

Peter wondered if he really saw what he thought he saw. For the time being, he decided not to share the occurrence with the rest of the team.

Olivia, perceptive as she was, leaned towards him as they were coming out of the jet behind Broyles, Astrid and fussy Walter.

"What is it, Peter? You look like you saw a ghost." she tried to ease him in with the joke.

"Yeah. A ghost" he nodded, absent. "It's…It's nothing, Olivia. I am just… Just a little tired, that's all."

"We all are." Astrid whined. "And we need a good shower, a change of clothes…"

"And don't forget a decent meal, Agent Farnsworth!" Walter turned around to have his say.

"You will get all that as soon as we arrive to Mission. It's of the utmost importance that we enter the rental car as fast as we can" Broyles hurried them up.

 **UPON** their arrival to Mission, after a silent hour-long ride by car, the Fringe Division was finally able to properly stretch their legs in front of their temporary hotel.

"Best Western Plus Mission City Lodge" Walter read, with his palm upon his forehead, straining his eyes.

"The location is perfect" Broyles reassured them. It's in the urban centre of the city, plus, it's very near Wien Street and 7th Avenue. However, the main reason why we had chosen this particular location and establishment is its proximity to Mission Memorial Hospital and Medical Centre, as well as LifeLabs. It's the laboratory the Canadian Liaison had provided for you. He shall be waiting for us in the lobby just before you go into your rooms and unpack briefly. When you do, I will be giving you assignments so don't tarry."

"I thought I saw a river as we were approaching the town from the west" Astrid sighed dreamily. She always was a nature lover.

"According to maps, it's called Fraser River. I am sure it looks even more awesome on a sunny day" Peter hugged himself subconsciously due to the cold wind that had blown just at that moment. "There are also couple of lakes nearby, Hayward, Hatzic, Cultus and a regional park. Wish we had time to visit it all" he sighed.

Walter was reluctant to enter the hotel.

"Walter" Peter was egging him on. "Come on. We have to unpack quickly and then go do whatever Broyles wants us to."

"Just a moment, my son. Let me breathe this magnificence that is all around me" the mad scientist seem to be deep lost in thoughts. "The air here is quite remarkable. Auspicious, if I may say so. It smells of clean, and freshness, divulging a fresh mystery, pregnant with all kinds of possibilities. Such a shame that I have just contaminated it with my fart. After all, I have been gaseous ever since we took off at Boston."

"Walter! That's just disgusting!" Peter couldn't hide the revulsion he felt at those words of his father.

"It's a normal human body reaction, Peter. Just a little bit of nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, methane and oxygen. And, as you may very well know…" Walter obviously enjoyed his lecture. "Only about one percent of a fart contains hydrogen sulfide gas and mercaptans, which contain sulfur, and the sulfur is what makes farts stink. However, I am confident that this fresh breeze will dissipate the foul smell in no time."

"But you absolutely had to share that information with us, didn't you" his son wasn't swayed.

"Hey, you two" Olivia approached them curiously with both of her hands in her pockets. She was now wearing a black beanie with all of her golden hair neatly tucked under it, which made her face even more prominent and pale, and her eyes were somehow larger and more innocent like. "How about we get in? Broyles is already inside and Astrid and I are freezing. What are you even doing out here anyway?"

"What is Walter doing, you mean? I am a mere observer in this equation, no pun intended" Peter chuckled. "Why don't you ask him what he is doing? Actually, you know, that's gonna be quite hard. He is in one of those moods. ´You wanna talk to me get a number´ moods, to be more precise."

"Do I even wanna know?" her playful voice tamed his ire a little bit.

"You really don't" Peter waved his hand dismissively.

"Agent Dunham. I apologize for my tardiness, I was just about to expulse some…"

Peter's hand came to the rescue once more.

"Let's just get in, Walter. You expulsed all what needed expulsion, I trust?"

"Not quite, my boy, but the loo should take care of that just fine" Walter added, as they got past the door and into the lobby.

A cozy, pleasant view awaited the team. There were soft leather chairs and stony fireplace in which the fire was burning amicably.

"Get the keys from your bedrooms from the receptionist. Needless to say, all the expenses and costs are covered by the FBI as long as we are here and working on a case. After you freshen up, Junior Agent Farnsworth and Agent Dunham, go to Mission Secondary and question the students from the class that late Eliza Tanner taught. Expand the investigation to all school staff members if needed, especially to those who fraternized with her the most. The Bishops will go to the Memorial Hospital morgue. RCMP Constable Murray will be waiting for you there. He will provide you with any kind of information you may need.

Astrid's eyes gleamed as she registered the first part of Broyles's order.

"Thank you for this opportunity, Sir. I am almost never out in the field and I…" she found that the words were failing her.

Broyles's stiff facial expression softened up a bit and the smile reached his eyes, but he didn't make any further comment.

"Go out there and find out what happened to that woman and whether we can expect further anomalies such as this one. Report directly to me upon your return." he was concise and the team obediently disbanded.


	4. Eliza's Mind

**OLIVIA** and Astrid arrived at the designated address in no time.

The FBI car was readily available to them, but they both simply wished to walk. Ecole Mission Secondary School was just a short while from their hotel.

Two women silently agreed that they've been cooped up on a plane and in the car for long enough; they needed to stretch their legs.

Neither of them have had anything to eat. Olivia, as always, wasn't particularly hungry in the morning anyway but Astrid was starving so they dropped by Rocko's 24 hour Diner on their way.

"What would you like me to get you for the go, Olivia?" Astrid was incredibly chirpy. "I can't believe Broyles gave me a chance to visit the crime scene and to interrogate the suspects! Whatever you want, it's on me! They serve huge breakfast here as I can see! Oh, they have poutine that Walter wanted to eat, I must make a mental note to get him some later when we re-join them in the lab!"

"Um…I am not really hungry" Olivia shrugged.

She actually was mentally preparing for the face-off with the friends and family of murdered and assaulted children and it wasn't a pleasant thing at all. "Just a huge cup of coffee for that extra energy kick. Black…"

"One sugar, I know", Astrid finished her sentence with a beam. "You sure you don't want anything else?" she stared at the menu, flabbergasted. "Wow. These rations are huge! Not to mention that everything has eggs and sausage in it, with extra ham and bacon. I can't possibly eat that much. "Steak and eggs", "Yukon Breakfast", "Alaskan Breakfast"…And there are pancakes, waffles and French toasts…" she enumerated items from the menu. I think I am just gonna get a cinnamon bun and be done with it."

After getting their order, they continued towards the secondary school, sipping coffee and, in Astrid's case, eating in silence; each of the two absorbed in her own thoughts.

The weather was chilly, but that wasn't what bothered Olivia. It was the greyness of it all, the glum atmosphere that the clouds would always create whenever they would obscure the sunlight.

Everything seemed a shade darker, somehow, gloomier and she hugged herself. It was as if the weather itself foreshadowed unpleasant things to come.

The sight didn't get any better when they turned toward the 7th Avenue.

Teenagers milled out of numerous cars, sporting garments in various shades of black and grey, sombre expressions on their faces. Olivia noticed everyone was followed by their parents.

Black flag was hung upon the mast in front of the school building.

"They are in mourning" Astrid said slowly, with deep sadness.

"Well, Broyles said the incident occurred two days ago. I suppose that…" Olivia dealt with everything she saw with her usual rationalism. "The funeral must have been held yesterday and today, the students are returning to their lessons as if nothing had happened. It's quite probable that the principal, school board and the staff, wish to treat the situation with normalcy. I mean, everyone must have been pretty shocked so the best way would be to…go on…"

"To pretend as if it hadn't happened" Astrid concluded grimly.

"Exactly" Olivia nodded. "Still" her head shook a bit. "You can see something is off. Students escorted to classes by their parents… Grim faces, silence, occasional tear…"

"They are doing their best to hide it but… You can still see something awful and unexpected transpired." Astrid whispered.

"Let's head inside and find the principal. I wonder if the students Eliza Tanner taught are here today or they were given some time off. I mean, after what they have been through…" Olivia closed her eyes for the moment.

"Good idea" Astrid agreed. As they both absently passed the more alert than ever security guard, showing their FBI credentials, couple of students turned their heads towards them, looking at them with a mixture of expectance and admiration.

Olivia's heart welled with pride.

"You know, this is one of the reasons why I do what I do" she whispered to Astrid.

"I want to solve this. To see who or what is behind this. To help these children to feel safe again. And I love the feeling that they believe in me, believe in us."

"I feel it too" Astrid agreed. "I really hope we will come upon some leads here, and find out more details about what happened."

The Principal, Mr. Pearce, was a grey haired man in his fifties. According to the papers Olivia had studied, he was a veteran Mission coach before becoming a principal, but he had held that honor for four years already.

He seemed vital and physically able bodied despite his age, yet the creases on his forehead showed his concern.

"Please, come in, agents. Let me thank you for coming on such short notice" his tone was incredibly civil and grateful at the same time.

"Well, that's what we are here for" Olivia smiled. "You are very welcome. I hope we shall be able to assist you."

"Nothing like this…" the man sat back in his chair for a while and held his head between his hands. "Nothing like this had ever happened at our school. We…We simply did not know how to deal with it. What does one do when all of a sudden, a person who until yesterday walked among you, a friend, a colleague, commits such an atrocious act? Everyone is still in shock. Sorry. I didn't mean to lay all this on you" he glanced up at two female FBI inspectors with an apologetic facial expression. "Others have the privilege to think, to grieve and to talk about what had transpired. And mine is to act. I understand that you have a strict schedule to uphold to today. Who would you like to talk to first? Eliza's closest friend, Mirna or the student's from her class?"

"Actually, I was thinking that we could split up" Olivia cast an encouraging glance towards Astrid. Junior Agent was incredibly thrilled and trying her best to hide it.

"As you say, agent Dunham", she nodded towards Olivia.

"The children are waiting for you at the psychologist's office", Pearce explained. "Miss Mirna, on the other hand, is at the staff room."

"I think I will go and talk to the children" Olivia patted Astrid on her shoulder. "And you can have a chat with Miss Mirna. We should both document the findings of our conversations to be able to profile her the best we can. Later we should check with Walter and Peter to see how their body inspection is going" Olivia concluded before they both abandoned Principal's office and went in their respective directions.

 **OLIVIA** knocked on the door twice. The approval was heard and she entered, tentatively. She found merely two children seated there. They were around fourteen or fifteen years old, and they were both wearing their black school uniforms. The girl was sobbing and the boy seemed sombre.

The school psychologist was a quiet, elderly woman with rimmed glasses. She shook hands with Olivia, nodding. "Other students were too stressed to come forward. Should you need to talk to the rest of the class even after Sam and Alice, please call me and I can arrange it with the previous preparation. They are best friends of two of the students that were initially killed" she took a deep breath. "The third student was more of a casualty as Eliza was heading out of the classroom."

Olivia thought she would speak to Sam first. He seemed more collected. She wanted to give Alice to calm down a bit.

"I'm sorry, both of you. I know how this must be hard for you, to think, to try to focus on the details of that day instead of trying to forget it" Olivia apologized as the psychologist left the office.

"That's ok" Sam swallowed. "If you think it will help you to understand what happened better…" his voice trailed off. "Even we aren't 100 % sure what happened and we were there" he sighed.

"I think it's easier if you just tell me everything you remember" Olivia said. She didn't want to pressurize them or ask them specific questions.

"Okay" Sam nodded. "It was a morning like any other." he smiled, recalling it, probably thinking of events before the massacre. "We always have English Literature first thing in the morning so Miss Eliza's class was our first class. We all liked her a lot, you know. She was always nice to us and would always hear out our problems."

"So she wasn't…A strict, or angry type?" Olivia seemed surprised.

"Oh no! Quite the opposite" Sam shook his head in fervour. "She was too nice, if anything. We would always joke around with her, that she is too good to us. She would sometimes let us copy in the exams and pretend she didn't see what we were doing. Or she would help us with the answers herself. That's how nice she was."

"So what happened in that class?" Olivia was sad that she had to insist on more details.

"Well, it all began normally. She entered the class, said hi to us and all. We knew we were supposed to have oral exam on English Literature in XVI century. Some of us studied, some of us didn't, you know, like always."

Olivia nodded with a small smile, listening intently.

"A handyman was there, and he was fixing something. He left his toolbox on the table. Miss Tanner started asking questions and Timothy… She told him to stand up. I remember that surprised me a lot because we were always seated during oral exam. The atmosphere was always relaxed. I knew he didn't study at all because he texted me the night before. She asked him something really simple, she just wanted him to tell her on of the Shakespeare's most famous works. But he…" Sam was now visibly more nervous. "He didn't know. Then Gina… She has a little crush on Timothy, I mean, she had. She wanted to help him and she whispered ´Hamlet´ to him. He didn't hear it well, or, maybe he did, I don't know, maybe he was just trying to be funny, and he said ´Omelette´. We all laughed, as per usual but then Miss Tanner's face…I swear, it just changed. She looked so furious. I have never seen her like that. It almost seemed as if she were…Someone else."

"What did she do next?" Olivia's gentle, soft voice, prodded him to go on.

"She stood up and came over to both of them with… Scissors. She was holding them in her left hand, hidden behind her back. She was our teacher for three years and I could have sworn she wasn't a leftie but… I don't know anymore. I remember their conversation well. She told Timothy: ´Omelette? Have you had breakfast today, Timothy? It doesn't look like you have. If you had, perhaps your brain would work better now. Or your ears would be unplugged, at least, since you didn't properly hear what Gina whispered to you.´ "

Alice spoke out of the blue, her face still down, tears soaking her skirt.

"Gina…Gina tried to defend herself. She shouldn't have said anything. She should have seen there was something off with Eliza."

"What did she tell her?" Olivia inquired.

"She said: ´Me? I didn't do anything, teacher, I swear´. That's what… That's what triggered it and that was when it started. She just pulled out the scissors and screamed: ´You didn't do anything, you say? Do you think I am idiot, you stupid bitch?´ And then she… Then she brought the scissors down and they pierced Gina's hand. There was blood everywhere, they were just…Embedded there. I remember Gina screaming. ´My hand! Aaaargh´ and Miss Tanner just went up to the toolbox and she came back with…With the pliers¨ Alice looked as if she were going to be sick since she gagged. "She said: ´Now I will take care of you in such a way that it will never occur to you to whisper to anyone ever again! I will rip out that dirty tongue of yours, you little idiot!´ Alice finished, breathing heavily. "I'm sorry. I can't" she said, all of a sudden and ran out of office.

Olivia didn't even try to stop her. She felt sadness and revulsion. It was as if she were listening to someone narrate a poorly scripted scene of a horror movie.

Except this was real life.

Sam stood his ground. He picked up the story from where Alice stopped. Olivia didn't even have to prod him to go on. His voice was monotonous and tired as he stared at a dot on the wall that only he could see.

"She grabbed Gina's neck and she opened her mouth. Then she…She pulled on her tongue will all her might and it…It just came off with the pliers. There was chaos. We all started running, tripping one over another. Everyone wanted to get to the door. Gina's body fell on the floor, blood flowing from her mouth. No one…Turned around to help her, to check if she were alive. We all wanted out of there and we didn't… We didn't care what… If she was still alive."

Olivia was staring at the floor, listening to the story. She couldn't believe that children so young were exposed to such terror.

"She yelled at us, then, I remember it clearly: ´Everyone, get back to your seats! Did I give you permission to stand up? To move freely around the classroom! 'She grabbed Timothy next. He had already reached for the door handle. She seemed incredibly fast and strong for some reason. She told him: ´Didn't you hear what I just said, Timothy? Let's see if there is anything in that shallow head of yours! You were always stupid, but I swear you won't be getting on my nerves anymore!´ Then Miss Tanner grabbed his head and she smashed it against one of the four angles of the table. There was this awful… Crunchy, squishy sound, I don't know how to describe it and his…" he closed his eyes as if willing himself to go on. "And his brains got spilled on the floor. Miss Tanner had this murderous, content gleam in her eyes. I went for the door next and opened it widely. I helped couple of people to come out. We knew we had to reach the security guard. She got even more furious and screamed ´That's enough of your insolence and poor behaviour! This is a school, not a circus! Or a brothel where your mother works!´ "

"Whom exactly were those words directed to?" Olivia inquired.

"He was the third victim. She grabbed him as if he were light as a feather and she… She smashed his body against the wall. By that moment almost everyone was out. There was just Alice…Alice left in the classroom and precisely at the moment when she was running through the door. Miss Tanner grabbed her hair. I remember her screaming: ´And where do you think you're going, little doll?´ Alice was besides herself. She was screeching: ´Nooo! Help! Please, somebody help me!´ And that's when the security guard showed up. He took a shot immediately. Alice ducked and he…He hit Miss Tanner straight in the forehead. She fell on the floor almost instantly and Alice ran towards us. She was so scared but…But at least she survived, you know?" Sam seemed relieved now that he had arrived at the end of the story.

"Thank you, Sam" Olivia was really grateful for everything he told her. She still couldn't fathom how and why did a peaceful town teacher become a hysterical serial killer and she hoped Astrid will find out more from Miss Mirna, as well as that Peter and Walter will have something for her in the lab once the school investigation concludes. It was all so surreal and it made her sick.

 _Was that her true nature after all, well hidden beneath the surface, beneath the mask of kindness? Or it was something else?_

Olivia knew that she now held one piece of the puzzle. Others had to wait.

 **ASTRID** sized up the lovely female figure who seemed to be in her late twenties, clad in tight light blue workwear.

 _She looks amazing_ , was Junior Agent's first thought. _Reminds me of Marilyn Monroe, actually._

As soon as she hit puberty, Astrid discovered she was attracted to her own sex and thankfully, her family fully supported her in her choice. Her dad was specially understanding and her friends as well, so she had no problems with teasing and bullying regarding her sexual orientation.

Astrid had a type: she had a thing for blonds. In fact, when she first met Olivia, for that matter, Astrid felt an enormous physical attraction but she knew young blonde agent was taken. After John Scott's death, senior and junior Bishop entered their lives.

Astrid wasn't blind to the strength of their mutual attraction and she knew well it was only a matter of time when Olivia would too, succumb under it and admit it to herself. She relied on Peter too much as it was.

That was the moment when Astrid gave up on affection she felt towards Olivia and she and Agent Dunham became firm friends instead.

Their four member team was more of a family even they had spent under a year fighting various surreal crimes together and Astrid wanted things to remain that way.

Miss Mirna Monroe, as Astrid called her inwardly even thought her last name was Statham, paced nervously left and right around staff room.

There was nobody else inside so Astrid supposed the rest of the employees are either in their classes of they have emptied the place in order to give them some privacy.

Unlike Olivia, who had freakishly good memory for details, Astrid was a bit worse off in that department, but she compensated well with compassion. That's why she always carried her trustworthy agenda around.

When Mirna turned around, the look on her face was one of surprise. Her light blue eyes widened a bit as she took in Astrid's caramel skin, sweet almond eyes and a mop of curls that fell around her face in various mismatched directions, making her look like a little girl. If anything, the FBI agent exuded empathy and trustworthiness.

"Miss Mirna Statham?"

She nodded wordlessly.

"Hi, my name is Junior Agent Astrid Farnsworth. I am sorry for bothering you so soon after the incident but me and my colleagues are making a psychological profile of your friend in order to understand better what drove her to do what she did." Astrid was apologetic.

"Yes, I am Mirna" the woman responded quickly and somewhat breathlessly and Astrid thought she had a typical sweet girly-girl voice. "You look awfully young, if I met you in the street I would never think that you are an FBI agent"

"No one has told me that yet" Astrid smiled widely. "But I suppose you are right" she thought the woman seemed fun and honest. "Shall we take a seat" Astrid motioned toward two empty chairs and pulled out her agenda.

"So…How are we supposed to do this, Agent Agnes?" Mirna removed her hair from her forehead several times and blabbed on. "You ask me questions and I answer or I just tell you everything I remember? Mind you, my memory is horrible, I can't even remember the names of the people I've just met!"

 _I can see that,_ Astrid thought with a smile. _Looks like I have Walter 2 on my hands._

"In that case, it would be best if you described that day to me, in a way you remember it."

"Which day?" Mirna seemed confused.

"The day of the murder, of course" Astrid thought it kind of cute and continued being patient.

"Oh, of course. Silly me" the woman giggled. "Eliza and I were best friends for years. We teach in the same school and well… I am not ashamed to admit I had a crush on her, but she just outright flat denied me and said she only wanted to be friends. I agreed, of course, but, you know, I figured out…It's your loss, honey. Even though she was a lot older than me, there was something incredibly attractive about her. Yet she couldn't find a suitable partner and she was nervous about the fact that she couldn't have children anymore…Her period being gone and everything…."

Astrid wondered when Mirna would emerge for air. She took a mental note of her sexual preferences and smirked.

 _Still, can't date a case witness. Not until the case is over at least._

"Would you mind focusing on the case?" she rebuked her gently.

"Oh? I am doing it again, aren't I? My good old fashioned digressing. Sorry. Case. Ok. Here we go. Well…Eliza had moved recently into a ´ghost house´."

"Ghost house?" Astrid wrote that down with a surprise.

"Yeah, it's this old mansion right next to high school. She wanted to live closer to work. Some old folks who used to live there called it like that and the name stuck, the whole town has been calling it ´ghost house 'now. She had actually just spent first night there."

"First night being…the night before the crime?" Astrid was now more and more certain that couldn't have been a coincidence.

"Exactly" Mirna nodded, crossing her legs and Astrid's eyes wandered towards her thighs. "Sorry, Agent Alisson, where was I? Oh, yes. The morning of the…" she stopped a little to collect her thoughts. "The morning of the crime I picked her up by car, as a joke. It was our little routine from before, from when she was living further away from school. I remember her being unusually quiet and reserved, perhaps… Too serious? I can't quite put it in words. I was always the nutty one in our interactions but this morning she was different. Quick to anger and less patient, perhaps? I joked around about her new ´ghost house´ and she told me not to call it like that. She seemed quite irritated. But the thing that struck me like… Super weird was when I was talking about redecorating her place. Because, you know, I had just helped her move in and I saw how old and dilapidated the furniture was. Eliza was so sensitive about it. She said: ´I won't change a thing´ and she seemed unusually stubborn. After we parked in front of the school I remember our last words. I told her: ´I am sure you don't want to move that pile of rubbish and redecorate because you are afraid of problems with the renting agency. Sometimes you are just too considerate, Eliza." Mirna shuddered all of a sudden.

"What did she say to that?" Astrid placed a palm over her hand in order to calm Mirna down.

"She had this… Strange evil gleam in her eyes as she replied: ´How so?´ It wasn't like her at all. I normally comment on everything but you know, that scared me for some reason and I just told her: ´You are too nice to your students and they know it. They use it to copy in classes and everything. You should show your teeth to them every once in a while, it wouldn't hurt you. Then she… She walked away to her classroom and said: ´You know…I might do just that´. And less than half an hour later that thing… happened." Mirna was in shock.

"It wasn't your fault" Astrid focused on woman's teary eyes. "We will get to the bottom of this."

"Can I go now?" Mirna seemed relieved.

"Of course. That would be all for now. We'll contact you again if we need further information" Astrid added with a smile.


	5. Eliza's Body

**PETER** accepted the firm cordial handshake of a blond haired man with warm eyes.

"Welcome to Canada, Sirs." his voice was firm and full of kindness. "My name is Constable Liam Murray. I was told to expect you."

"Murray" Peter's forehead wrinkled. "Do you have Irish ancestry?"

"Good eye there… You should see how St. Paddy is celebrated in Ottawa. I guess Americans consider themselves Americans but Canadians are proud to call themselves Irish, Scottish, Japanese, Chinese etc. Mr… Peter Bishop, right?"

"Yes, that's me", Peter nodded.

"And this must be your father…"

Walter pushed himself past his son and grabbed the extended arm with both of his hands.

"Good morning. My name is Dr. Walter Bishop. It is very nice to meet you, Sir…" Walter stopped mid-sentence, puzzled. "Oh dear. I seem to have forgotten your name. Even though you have just told it to us. Such a blubbering idiot!" Walter shouted upwards, speaking to himself, getting angrier by the second.

Peter stepped in, placing a hand on his father's shoulder with a calming gesture.

"Forgive my father, will you? He gets a little nervous around authority figures. He was practicing his salutation on the way here. He got a bit disappointed by the fact that he couldn't remember your name."

Murray took Walter's palm between both of his hand, treating him with care and patience.

"That's quite alright, Dr. Bishop. I have heard a lot about you and your achievements. There will be time a plenty for you to remember my name, I can assure you that" he smiled.

"I wouldn't count on that" Peter muttered, thinking about the fact that Walter had spent seven month in a lab with Astrid on a daily basis. That still didn't help him remember her name.

 _On the other hand, maybe Walt is just messing with Astrid._

 _There's an option I never considered before._

Yet even his sarcasm couldn't beat the careful, sincere treatment Murray gave to his father.

"So, how was your trip?" Constable tried to be polite.

"I don't know" Walter was at loss. "I haven't even noticed we travelled somewhere. How about you, Peter?"

Murray smiled. "How does a man arrive from Boston to Mission without even noticing?"

"A man…not so much. Walter here… Easy peasy" Peter replied.

"Oh, I forgot. But it's all just coming back to me. We were on some kind of a plane…"

"Yes, Walter. Good job" his son encouraged him.

"After that, everything goes foggy in my mind" Walter sulked.

"The plane was from Boston to Vancouver, for sure" Constable Murray wanted to be of assistance as well. It pained him to see the forgetfulness in such a brilliant mind. "And you drove afterwards, probably."

"Hmm. It might have happened like that. Except that… It couldn't have been me who drove" he leaned towards Murray's ear conspiratorially. "I haven't been allowed to drive, not since I was released from a mental institution."

Murray allowed himself a small sad smile.

He knew Walter Bishop's story very well.

He studied the profiles of Fringe division agents last night just after he found out they will be coming to assist on the case.

"Maybe actual driving would help you and have therapeutic effect" it was his turn to lean towards Walter intriguingly.

"That's what I've been telling Peter for a long time now!" Walter seemed thrilled that someone shared his opinion.

"How about no?" Peter shook his head. "Walter driving now, at the state his mind is at the moment… Would cause many trash cans to overturn and loving pets to keel over in the middle of the roads. Trust me, you don't want that… I'm not saying that things won't change in the future but at the moment… My father is unfit for such mental and bodily gymnastics. And, changing the topic…Um…We were told there was no need to drop by the hospital after all?"

Young Constable replied, ignoring the previous comment about Walter.

"When I heard your jet landed I wanted to save you the trouble of passing through the morgue. Especially because LifeLabs are just across the street" he motioned with a smile. "The body is being transferred to the lab as we speak. You will use a back room that has been somewhat transformed to look like a lab you are using at Harvard" Murray said with admiration. "Sorry. Courtesy of Mr. Broyles" he added, wanting to explain how he knew what their lab back at Boston looked like.

"Oh!" Walter did a little victorious dance. "Will there be a cow, too? We have such a nice cow back home at Boston, you see. Her name is Gene. She loves regular brushing and an occasional sugar cube here and there, you know how it is with the cows these days… Not that this new cow could replace Gene, but it could most certainly help me focus in an unknown environment!"

Peter caught Murray's look of mild amusement and disbelief.

"Aaand no. He is not joking, before you ask" younger Bishop clarified the situation amicably.

Murray looked pensive. "I do not know whether there is a cow or not. If you so wish, we can bring you one. I have never actually tried using a cow to channel my inner thoughts. I have, however, employed some RCMP guidelines, Sherlock Holmes deductive technique, the, of course, famous Tibetan method, instinct and pure luck. This case though might require something new for stimulation of my neural patterns, which, in lack of better words, we shall call magic. I suppose we all need our private cow."

"Smashing" Peter rolled his eyes, muttering to himself.

 _This guy will get along splendidly with Walt._

Peter discerned the man wasn't actually wearing the entire Mountie uniform attire, but he kept only the Stetson hat.

"Nice hat" Peter saw Murray noticed him staring.

There was nothing to say but to attempt a lame pun and acknowledge the gawking.

"Oh, this?" Constable Murray flashed another wide smile and touched the tip of his Stetson in a kind of an earnest salute.

 _He is sort of honest, helpful and down to Earth. Seems to be an idealistic young boy, uncorrupted by life and undefeated by daily downfalls. Healthy dose of optimism, this one has,_ Peter joked inwardly in a Yoda-like voice.

 _And there is that desire to serve and protect, the faithfulness to the office and the firm determination I see and admire in Olivia's eyes, words and deeds every day._

 _Yet he is somehow warmer than she is._

 _Maybe he hasn't had traumatic past experiences as she did or…He simply found the way to jump over them._

 _Andd this is where we have to draw the line_ , Peter addressed himself inwardly.

 _You have just compared a man you met with Olivia and called him male Agent Dunham in your thoughts._

 _That's how far your obsession has advanced, Bishop._

"I have worn it for as long as I can remember. Hat is always on, even when I am not wearing a uniform. I suppose you could say it's my lucky charm of a sorts. I have a habit of calling it ´stetson of invulnerability´. And it surprises me every now and then; I often find paper money inside, just when I am about to purchase…Say… a morning cup of coffee or cherry pie."

"So you are an optimist, then" Peter leaned towards him with an increased interest.

"Oh, absolutely" Murray nodded vigorously. "You see, I believe the world would be a much better place if everyone treated each other with much more care and respect. And it's little details and special moments that make the life worth living. We all wish for something, care for something. We all have goals. Me for instance, I would like to climb a tall hill –not too tall – sit in the cool grass –not too cool – and feel the sun on my face. I wish I could have cracked the kidnapping case I never did. I would very much like to make love to a beautiful woman who I had genuine affection for. We should all try and live our lives to the fullest. And yet, sadly, humans on this great big Planet Earth live at only a fraction of our potential."

"That is something I can agree with you on" Peter nodded. He briefly wondered what it was that he wanted. Before meeting Olivia, he was certain what he didn't want. Or at least he thought so.

 _I was sure I wanted to get the hell away from my past, as far away as it was humanely possible._

 _To leave my mother's suicide and my father's insanity behind me. To become someone new, a charming Jack of all trades, a con man who puts a different mask every day, a chameleon._

" _We all wish for something."_

 _He's got that right, alright._

 _Now, I have a feeling I have become a completely different person._

 _Now, I wish for Olivia to notice me as a man._

 _Not just as a snarky joke teller who assist her with an insane scientist._

 _You could say it's probably what I want the most._

 _I sure hope I am good at hiding it_ , Peter swallowed and then paid attention to the Canadian liaison's words.

"Shall we?" the young man motioned towards the lab which was just across the street.

"Sure" Peter agreed. "Not too much to walk after all. Now, where did I leave my father? Walter…Walter! What are you doing?" Peter was horrified after having seen his father running after a nurse.

"Peter! Peter, come here! They have lemon jell-o!" Walter was unstoppable when it came to food tasting.

"Sir! Sir!" the nurse seemed agitated. "I really must ask you to…"

"Excuse me, Miss. I get so excited around food. Is that lemon jell-o?"

"Walter" Peter was exasperated. "Those are urine samples". He snickered as he saw disappointment grow on his father's face.

"Oh" Walter's creases relaxed. "Well, in that case, there is nothing more to be done here. I am not thirsty, not at all, just…Rather peckish. I hope the lab has a small kitchenette or at least cooking space."

"Really? Is that's what's on your mind right now? You wanna cook? Figures, though."

"I am in a mood for some Canadian dishes, Peter, you can't deny them to me. Lead the way, I wish to see the new lab the nice man prepared for us!" Walter almost galloped out the hospital door like a disobedient boy and it was up to Peter to run after him and rein him in. Constable Murray followed, holding the tip of his Stetson hat so that it wouldn't fall off.

 **LABORATORY** they were given was an ample surgically white room on the first floor of LifeLabs.

Plenty of light penetrated the impeccably clean, huge windows, or, at least, it would have, Peter thought, if the day was sunny.

Cold greyness enveloped every corner of the state-of-the-art room instead.

It was making him feel uneasy even though the décor was much more chic than the one they had in Harvard basement.

Equipment seemed newer and more advanced as well. Peter suppressed a smile as Walter stared straight ahead searching for, he knew, a huge four legged black and white body which was nowhere to be seen.

His father looked disoriented, nervous and anxious; Peter knew it was because Walter didn't like unfamiliar spaces, colours, smells and sounds, and this was one such a place.

 _It's routine Walt is after._

 _I guess I should at least play his favourite music playlist on repeat so that he could calm down and focus. I owe him that much._

 _My little surprise project that I left back in Boston is far from ready so we'll have to make do with music coming from a normal cell phone_ , Peter shrugged inwardly.

Two men responsible for handling, cleaning and moving the body entered right after them carrying a non-porous, lightweight white bag which snugly hugged the contours of Eliza Tanner. Constable approached them and they engaged in a hushed conversation.

Peter felt strange excitement budding inside him. He knew unfortunate circumstances and secrecy surrounded this death and it was up to him and Walter to unravel anything suspect might have left behind.

The best part of it was that, even if in the beginning of that strange father and son business they had going for over half a year now, Peter was edgy, frightened and suspicious of Walter's capabilities, after having witnessed him do things he never thought possible, younger Bishop knew better than to doubt his senior.

 _If anyone can figure out what happened to this woman, it's Walter and me. When we are at our best capacity, of course_ , Peter frowned, well aware how such capacity was difficult to achieve.

As the body was placed on the autopsy table, Peter turned toward his father expectantly.

Walter was now muttering something to himself.

"Hey Walter!" Peter shouted at him across the room. "The body is here! A little bit of focus wouldn't kill you, just so you know! What the hell are you doing?"

"I am fully focused, Peter! As for your answer, what I am doing is arranging a mental inventory of all the items that are currently available to us and the items that are still to be brought to this… chamber" he glanced around disapprovingly. "Let's see… Bone saw…Oh, it's here. We don't have to go to hardware store for one."

"Thank God for that" Peter closed his eyes recalling the case where they had to saw off the hand from the corpse of the guy stuck in the wall. Creeped out expression of that shop assistant was still etched in his memory as if it were yesterday."

"A bread knife with serrated edge… Present! It looks quite sharp, mind you. It will be of use to me later, for cutting up butter and almonds."

"Seriously, Walter? You are first going to cut up her organs into neat strips and then just carry on nonchalantly and slice some almonds? Gross!"

"It's all the same to me, son" Walter shrugged with a smile. "I like cutting" Peter could have sworn the gleam in mad scientist's eye was now almost conspiratory.

"They have enterotome here! I've always wanted one. Do you know, Peter, that it can smoothly strip down the length of the intestine? And there is an excellent trick: the blade is actually closed by the blunt bulb, which prevents any perforation of the gut when the instrument is inside."

"Thank you for sharing that information with me" Peter facepalmed himself with a sigh.

"Hagedorn needle… To sew up her body with heavy twine after we are done… Good, good… There is one thing I don't know" Walter seemed confused.

"Something you don't know? Now you intrigued me" Peter smiled.

"How are we going to place her organs after we are done, Peter? The way they were two months ago or the way they are now?"

"Let's worry about that later, Walter, shall we? Do you have everything you need to start?"

"Scalpel, scissors, rib cutter…" Walter muttered absently. "There is one thing missing but perhaps we won't be needing it after all. Hammer with hook and skull chisel. It's used to play sculptor, Peter. The chisel separates the calvarium, or the upper part of the cranium, from the lower part of the skull. If we have to do that, the hook will help us pull the calvarium away and create a skull cap, if you will."

"Thank you for that graphical description. I sure hope we won't be needing that." Peter swallowed. He wouldn't admit it openly to anyone, and he was grateful Olivia wasn't around to see his mortified facial expression, but Peter Bishop still hadn't gotten used to autopsies.

"Excuse me?" Walter called Constable Murray who rushed towards him straight over.

"Yes, Mr Bishop? How may I be of service?"

"We shall be needing…" Walter stopped mid-sentence.

"Hammer with the hook and skull chisel" Peter finished tiredly.

"Also, would you be as so kind as to provide me with a regular size freezer, oven safe baking tray, ½ cup butter ¼ cup sugar 5 tablespoons cocoa powder 1 egg, beaten 1 ¼ cup graham cracker crumbs 1 cup sliced almonds, chopped ½ flaked coconuts…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Walter? What are you even saying? Are you having some kind of brain short circuitry?" Peter was bewildered.

"Oh no!" Murray exclaimed happily. "I understood your father perfectly! He is making Nanaimo bars."

"Nana-what?" Peter sighed.

 _If Murray is on Walter's side from the go already, this lab will look like a battlefield. He is practically giving free reign to my father_.

"This three-layer bar dates back to the 1930s when the first recipe was printed in a newspaper or magazine and a group of women in Nanaimo, B.C. renamed it after the town. Traditionally, the bar consists of a chocolate-coconut-graham cracker crumb base, an icing sugar and vanilla custard powder filling and a semi-sweet chocolate top. Now, many variations for the middle layer exist such as cherry, peanut butter, mint and cappuccino." Murray fired the content readily back at him.

"Okay. I get the picture. It sounds really tasty, especially the coconut one" Peter gave up and joined the fun.

"I am partial to cherry flavoured one myself" Murray said with that big childish smile. "Sometimes I think it's all I need in our lives. A damn fine strong cup of coffee, hot, black as midnight on a moonless night, accompanied by that damn fine Nanaimo bar." He sighed contentedly.

"Great. Now I am hungry" Peter rubbed his stomach. He liked the man. Everything he was saying should have sounded cheesy. No one talked like that. Murray expressed himself as a character from a book and yet… He believed in what he was saying and his enthusiasm about life was contagious.

 _He's a good guy_ , Peter nodded inwardly.

"Young man, I shall make sure to make the second layer to your liking as well. We can have two types of Nanaimo bars!" Walter was now jumping up and down without being able to stand still.

"Sure, Walter. Let's perform the autopsy first and then you can enter your ´joy of baking´ mode for as long as you want." Peter was being pragmatic for once. "Olivia and Astrid will be back soon and we are supposed to be working. We don't' want them to catch us baking instead of chopping, if you catch my drift."

"I would like that very much, son. As a matter of fact, we must make sure Olivia and Astrid attend. We can't eat all of the bars before they return. I want to see Olivia's face as she eats my bar."

"Ugh…That's just wrong, Walter" Peter grimaced but at the same time, he was battling a smile. "But I am pretty sure that when she sees us making cookies instead of working, Olivia will say…"

"That is quite enough. You have made clear where your loyalties lie. Olivia will say this, Olivia will say that…You were a lot more fun before you fell head over feet for Agent Dunham" Walter muttered under his breath.

"Say what, Walter?" Peter couldn't believe what he was hearing.

 _And in front of Murray, no less._

"Oh, love" Murray muttered absently. "If you are a man who doesn't love easily, you probably love too much. But be careful, my friend. In the grand design, women were drawn from an entirely different set of blueprints."

Peter was becoming redder and redder by the second.

"My father…he likes to invent stuff for his own entertainment" he cast a glance towards Walter and if the looks could kill, that one would have struck senior Bishop right down on the ground.

"I was in love once" Murray's dreamy voice came back. Peter moaned, knowing that yet another of his philosophical states was coming on. "You know, I proceed as usual, my mind clear and focused – and then suddenly, out of nowhere, I see her face and I hear her voice. Naturally I try to reorient myself, come back to the task at hand, but the image remains. Sometimes I actually feel dizzy….Well, my symptoms suggest the onset of malaria, but I've never felt better in my life."

A strange silence fell in the lab as each respective Bishop mused over that thought, relating it to their own feelings of infatuations present and infatuations long gone.

 _It's just how I feel about Dunham._ He put his hands in his pockets.

"So how about we proceed as usual?" Peter muttered silently. "Come back to the task at hand, if you will." He quoted Murray with a smile that was earnest and not a mockery.

His slightly trembling finger pressed a "play" button and the song reverberated through the lab.

"Violet Sedan Chair!" Murray and Walter exclaimed at the same time. "That's my boy" Walter added proudly. "My son…Knows just what I need to concentrate on working, you see."

 _She's doing fine all the time_

 _yeah she's doing fine all the time_

 _yeah she's doing fine all the time_

 _yeah she's doing fine all the time_

 _yeah she's doing fine all the time_

 _yeah she's doing fine all the time_

 _She walks tall with an open mind_

 _heads turning as she passes by_

 _she needs rhythm but she don't need rhyme_

 _and one glance is gonna get you high_

"I hope our victim liked this music" Walter leaned above the corpse caringly. "Let me just move her boob over here…She had a nice pair, even for her age."

"Walter…" Peter was already tired of repeating his father's name.

"What? Don't be such a prude, Peter. Mr…"

"Murray" Constable helped him with an amused forgiving smile.

"Murray…Here agrees with me, don't you, Mr. Murray?"

"I am afraid I am not allowed to offer such an assessment" Constable shook his head lightly with lips mildly curved in a benevolent grin.

"Tray, Peter…Excellent!" heart was tossed towards younger Bishop and he slid forward to catch it.

"A +, boy!"

"Um, Walter…I was carrying a tray. It's not exactly rocket science."

"Just as Broyles said: heart was on the right side of her body. Still no apparent causant for such a state" Walter was frowning. "I am going to inspect the brain next. I suspect we shall find more information there, after analysing her neural pathways" the scientist wasn't giving up after the first obstacle.

He made a precise cut which Peter and Liam admired.

 _He is at his best in such moments. He must feel…."Normal", working_ , Peter thought without saying it out loud. Walter would usually do or say something weird right after behaving normally and his son didn't wanna jinx him.

"Now. I must make haste. My bladder must be emptied in under 20 minutes."

 _And there it is._ Peter smirked.

"And a fine brain she has." Walter pronounced proudly mere moments after having separated it from the cranium.

"If someone heard you now, Walter, they would think you have just delivered a baby" Peter couldn't refrain from being snarky.

"Brain is, in a way, a product of our being" Murray whispered. "Or was it the other way around?"

"Human brain tastes like chicken" Walter added a non-connected thought. "Or was it pork?" he was puzzled.

"It's lamb, Walter" Peter corrected him, wondering why the hell they were talking about it anyway.

"I can attest that for a fact" Murray confirmed and Peter spun around flabbergasted only to find the Constable carefully touching the brain with the tip of his tongue.

"The best way to categorize evidence, with senses of smell and taste" he seemed focused and proud of himself.

 _Aww great. Locked up in a lab with two lunatics._

 _But I probably shouldn't complain._

 _They don't say in vain: A man is known by a company he keeps._

 _I am as bad as they are, I guess_ , Peter sighed and turned back to Eliza's body.


	6. Mr And Mrs Spiker Jordan

**MR** Thomas Spiker Jordan was tapping his foot impatiently. The man in front of him was just too slow.

He was sitting there, all smug behind his squared spectacles, with his receding hairline, his fat hand caressing his goat beard.

Did this man think that gave him some kind of importance?

Because as far as Mr. Thomas Spiker Jordan was concerned, it didn't. At all.

He didn't even know the man's name, to begin with.

The fat employee of the real estate agency finally seemed to have noticed his annoyance.

"Just a couple of more signatures and it's a done deal, Mr. Jordan."

"Spiker Jordan! Thomas Spiker Jordan!" beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. Through the open window of their new home, he could hear a clang of a car trunk and the sound of luggage rolling on the pavement.

Jane was too slow, as usual. If she dared to make yet another mistake, she was going to get it.

"Yes, of course, Mr. Spiker Jordan" the fat man replied, correcting himself. "The renting contract is legally binding."

"Here you are", Mr. Spiker Jordan added, handing him the papers with his signature.

"Excellent. The house is yours. I will personally see to other minor formalities so that you wouldn't have to" the man was now smiling in a lickspittle way. "Enjoy your new abode."

"Of course" Mr. Spiker Jordan was pleased.

The man was finally showing him some well-deserved respect.

He followed him to the door and saw the real estate agent almost collide with Jane in process.

He quickly scanned the luggage she was carrying. All four bags were accounted for.

 _At least she did something right_.

He heard the man say: "Goodbye, Mrs. Jordan", and Jane barely replied, huffing as she was climbing the stairs: "Good…Good bye."

Mr. Spiker Jordan shouted out from the hallway: "Spiker Jordan!" Mrs. Spiker Jordan!", but the man was already gone.

"How come you allowed that worm to pronounce my name erroneously, without having corrected him?" Mr. Spiker Jordan placed his hands on his hips in a menacing way.

"But, Thomas", she bent her head submissively.

He carried on, without paying attention to her intromission.

"When we got married, I gave you my honourable surname and it was from then on your duty to pronounce it completely and accurately with every opportunity you get."

"Al…Alright" he could see her starting to sweat and tremble.

 _That's how it should be._

"You are right, Thomas. I am sorry. It won't happen again." Jane replied in a quiet voice The biggest of the four bags she was carrying opened up with a "tlok" sound, and emptied its contents on the floor.

"Jane!" he bellowed, getting redder and redder in face by the second. "If this is the way you think you should look after my clothes, then, you, obviously, need…A lesson!" Mr. Spiker Jordan emphasized every word.

"Oh no, I beg you! Please! I will be more careful in the future, I promise" tears were now freely streaming down her face and he truly enjoyed her act of honest repentance.

"Please don't, Thomas…"

"You should know by now that begging and crying only worsens the situation." Mr. Spiker Jordan was implacable. "You will get what you deserved as soon as we have supper."

 **SEVERAL** hours later, Mr. Spiker Jordan was sitting on a huge marital bed in their new bedroom, completely naked, gripping a leather whip in his right hand.

He saw Jane's silhouette in the door, her downcast eyes and her nude figure with firm breasts.

A strange excitement washed over him at the thought they would soon be covered in blood.

"Are you ready?" he inquired strictly.

"Y…yes" she muttered and he could see her swallow in fear.

"Come in, then. Stand in front of the mirror. I want you to see yourself as you receive the righteous punishment."

"Yes… Okay".

"Make sure you remember what I will tell you now, Jane. Don't you ever forget it again." Mr. Spiker Jordan emphasized each and every word.

"I won't, Thomas. I promise."

"And now listen! Listen carefully! Listen to the voice of the whip! Listen to his wise words!" he howled in rage.

Mr. Spiker Jordan then raised his whip up and down quickly several times, painting beautiful, burning, bloody red flowers all over her front and back.

He felt like an artist, no…Like a God, creating her in his own image.

Mr. Spiker Jordan didn't stop until Mrs. Spiker Jordan fell on the floor.

He looked at them both in the gigantic mirror.

She was on her all fours, nude and conquered, wailing like a wounded animal.

There were markings of blood, sweat and piss rolling down her skin, being hungrily drank by the carpet.

He was standing above her, with a triumphant facial expression.

Mr. Spiker Jordan was her lord and saviour, her conqueror.

And she was to be his. Till the end of time.

Now he could show some mercy.

Because, what rightful ruler doesn't hold both iron and silk in his hands?

"That's enough for tonight" Mr Spiker Jordan's voice became slightly softer. "Let's go to bed."

 **MORNING** in their new love nest awoke Mrs. Spiker Jordan first, as always.

It was her duty to wake up before her husband and prepare breakfast for both of them, and she knew it well.

Jane slowly rolled out of bed and looked at her husband's sleeping form with tenderness.

 _What would I do if I didn't have him to look after me and my behaviour?_

She was grateful for having him there to correct her misguided steps.

Yet there was something stirring within her.

Something new and unknown.

All of a sudden, she thought what it would be like if she raised her pillow and placed it on his smug, moustached face.

If she pressed it downwards until he could no longer breathe anymore.

Jane smiled at the thought and then went downstairs into the ample kitchen.

She first called the dog to come over, which he did.

As a good dog he was.

Orijen brand pellets were spilt in his dog bowl along with the water and Jane patted him slowly on the head.

Now it was her turn.

She was in a mood for some eggs and bacon.

Her skilled hands ably grabbed the small sharpened knife.

Her fingers were overjoyed at the grip.

Jane sliced the bacon with her left hand, placed the oil in the frying pan along with eggs and sat on the chair.

She felt unusually powerful and herself today.

Like a goddess, really.

She could do anything she wanted, take any decision.

The world was hers.

Then she heard the sound of feet coming down the stairs.

It used to fill her with dread, but not anymore.

She was indifferent to it.

The sound was inconsequential, irrelevant.

The man approaching her was but a speck of the dust, a bug to be squashed and never looked at twice.

She felt him hug her from behind.

"Good morning, darling! How did my love sleep last night? Mmmm…And dare I say…What an amazing smell! Eggs and bacon, am I right?" he whispered into her ear.

Jane felt disgust.

Smile was plastered on man's face and Jane thought he looked silly like that.

It unnerved her to no end, that moustache, that stupid grin and that tv-commercial-optimistic voice.

She stood up and faced away from him, staring at the kitchen counter as he went on.

"A strong breakfast after the refreshing, invigorating sleep. In a company of my loving wife. What more can a man want from his life? I often think how without you, my love, I wouldn't be able to deal with all the strains at work, in a tense, merciless atmosphere, surrounded by sharks…" he took a sip of the coffee holding the mug in his left hand as he glanced at the morning local Mission newspaper. "Always ready to tear you apart."

Jane was particularly proud of herself when she chose that precise moment to sink the cleaver into his shoulder.

Blood fountain was immediately created, spurting everywhere and she revelled in cool red droplets that sprinkled her face.

It was almost as if it were a sunny day for her to enjoy outdoors, splashing around.

His left arm came of easily and rolled around the kitchen floor.

The table was now overturned and the breakfast remains were lying around everywhere as he was staggering around the kitchen, bewildered.

"What is the meaning of this, darling?" he approached with that same idiotic smile. "Is there something wrong, my love? Let me kiss you…" he approached as the blood was still spurting from the wound.

Jane brought him down on the floor with one swift fist punch and straddled him.

Winter was coming, as her favourite book indicated.

And a lot of meat was needed to go through it.

Meat that she now had so readily available.

She methodically started chopping off all of the fingers on his remaining arm before removing it completely as well.

He was just lying there patiently, showering her with compliments and sweet words.

"That's it, my love. Do whatever you wish, darling. Yes, Jane. Yes!" were his last words as she finally severed his head from his body as well.

"What a mess I have made" she whispered in the empty kitchen as frantic barking and scratching was heard at the door. "This is unacceptable. My kitchen must always be impeccable."

She opened the kitchen cupboard and pulled out a plastic wrap. Then Jane proceeded to carefully wrapping up each and every one of her husband's body parts.

She saved the head for the end and put it in the freezer.

It was still smiling, even in his death.

Thomas's moustache was visible through the plastic and Jane frowned.

"I should have shaved that away before storing it. Oh well, it doesn't matter now."

She glanced around the kitchen, approving of the wall colouring.

"I've always liked red" she nodded to herself with a smile. "Oh no…I've run out of cleaning products. I simply must go out to the nearest supermarket and get some."

Jane took a quick shower, touching her last night wounds on her back.

She barely remembered her lesson even happening, let alone when and how.

To Jane, those were now battle scars that would soon heal, the remnants of some past time, some past Jane.

She was someone else now. Someone strong, resilient and decisive. The game of life was now going to be played by her rules.

After she changed into a fresh, clean clothes with magnolia smell, she stepped out into the small garden and caressed the agitated dog.

"Stay. Good boy" she ordered.

The dog cocked his head to the right as if listening, squealed a little bit and obeyed, without following her out.

Jane Simmons who was no longer Mrs. Spiker Jordan took her invigorating steps as a newly born woman.

She never felt better.

 _That real estate agency man said there was a Walmart Mission Supercentre just a short drive away._

 _It's perfect._

She sat in the family car.

Mr. Thomas Spiker Jordan never allowed her to drive in her past life. She sped off towards the shopping mall without regard for speed.

Jane parked easily and entered the Walmart Mission Supercentre with a confident stride.

She added a heap of cleaning products, toilet paper and bunch of her favourite food almost without looking. Her shopping cart was filled to the brim. Then she directed herself to the counter.

 _I am finally buying everything I want, without any restrictions._

 _And I am the first one in line, too._

 _This day couldn't have started any better._

A smell of rot and cabbage reached her fine, delicate nostrils.

Jane frowned, turning around.

Some hunchbacked grey-haired old woman was right behind her, holding a loaf of bread and a carton of milk in her bony, trembling hands.

 _That's where the repulsive smell came from_ , she almost pinched her nose.

"Sorry…Would you mind if I cut in, please? I only have these two things…Thank you…Sorry once again" the woman already stepped in front of Jane, placing her bread and milk on the line.

It caused Jane's head to burst in an inexplicable pain. She took a step forward toward the woman, roaring in fury.

"Thank you for what, you bloody witch? Go back behind me and step in line, where you belong! I don't remember telling you that you could cut in!"

"What?" the old woman was appalled. "What kind of behaviour is that? I will not do so, you rude, ill-mannered miscreant!"

"You won't? Oh, then I will have to show you your place, you old smelly hag!" Jane pushed the woman with her cart and she lost her balance, falling on the floor.

"And as far as my behaviour is concerned…It is quite adequate." Jane went on, taking a wine bottle from her cart and breaking it on the counter.

She then crouched over the old lady and showed the broken glass down her throat.

Blood gushed everywhere, spraying the cashier's spotless white shirt.

"Heeelp!" it was her time to scream, as she was staring at now lifeless body of the old woman.

Jane didn't like the screeching sound at all. It bothered her and it pierced her ears in an unpleasant way. She needed to put a stop to it.

"Stop croaking, you damned crow!" Jane exclaimed and grabbed a bottle of bleach from her cart next. She easily overpowered the cashier and poured the entire content of the plastic recipient down her throat.

"Try this, you might like it!" she shouted vindictively as she went towards the exit of the supermarket without having paid and without even glancing back.

A supermarket security guard ran after her.

"Hey, you! Stop, dammit! Stop when I say!"

"Today the whole world is out to get me, or so it seems" Jane sighed tiredly and grabbed her faithful broken bottle, piercing his right eye. He fell on his knees with a bellow.

People were stepping away from her, running in all directions.

She heard many of them scream: "Call the police! Stop her! Stop that woman! Catch the killer!" but Jane paid no attention to those petty outcries.

She was finally doing what she wanted and she would be damned if anyone would put a stop to it.

Jane Simmons was ready to take on everyone, no matter what it took.

A young nervous policeman caught up to her at a parking lot, just as she was depositing her groceries in the trunk and humming a cheerful tune.

"You! Put your hands on the roof sof your car! Now!" the gun was trembling in his hands.

"Why? So you can touch me as much as you wish, right? All men are pigs!" she exclaimed and headed straight for him with the broken bottle.

The saying "Third time is a charm" seemed to have a reverse application in Jane Simmons's life.

It was precisely the third time when her luck ran out.

The policeman's gun fired once, twice, three times, going straight through her chest.

Jane Simmons' body fell over her shopping cart, spilling all the groceries she had previously bought with such satisfaction.

Her blood was now gathering in a small pool around her corpse, mingling with the wine that was trickling from the broken bottle.

 **THE** lab door opened and Olivia and Astrid entered wearing pleasantly surprised smiles on their faces as they were looking back.

 _Someone must have opened the door for them_ , Peter rolled his eyes. _And by someone, I mean Constable Murray, of course._

"Afgan! What took you so long! I was just telling Peter I could use your help with this neural scan!" Walter rubbed his hands, overjoyed. Curly haired junior Agent immediately went over to Walter after a small smile and nod to Peter.

 _It's a smile that says: Oh well, I had my fun out there in the field. Back to slaving here in the lab_.

 _Is it me or she looks unusually flushed?_

 _I wonder what happened out there._

"Thank you" Peter heard Olivia say. "You must be…"

"Constable Liam Murray, at your service, Agent Dunham" his face was kind and serious as he lifted his hat to her.

Olivia frowned in surprise having noticed some banknotes in his hair. "Is that…"

"Money?" he smiled pleasantly. "Oh yes. I always leave some under there for emergency cases. And now, if you'll excuse me, I simply must leave to meet with agent Broyles. Dr Bishop…" he waved to Walter from the exit. "Congratulations on a successful nutritive production. This must be where pies go when they die."

Olivia's eyes looked for Peter without her even having realized that and they both grinned at each other as she approached him.

He clasped the edge of the table to steady himself.

No matter how many times a day Peter Bishop saw Olivia Dunham, the same weakness in his legs and temporary inability to speak would hit him hard.

And then he would have to pretend it wasn't so all over again and play it cool.

"We seem to have another Walter on our hands" she whispered to him conspiratorially as her eyes twinkled.

"You caught that too, didn't you?" he grinned back. "And here I was thinking I was the only one. Thankfully, that is not entirely the case, I promise you. He's a good guy. And smart, despite all his quirks. I would say he fits right with us" Peter added.

"So" Olivia passed her fingers through her hair without realizing she was doing so and Peter followed the trail of her hand with his eyes. "How is Walter liking the new lab?"

"I would say he is handling the change pretty well. We have all what we need here, minus Gene, apparently" Peter chuckled uncomfortably, distracted by her proximity.

"He misses her?"

"Walter adores that cow. She is a divinity to him."

"Don't mock me Peter. Cow is revered and highly respected animal in India, so why shouldn't it be in our lab as well?" Walter quipped back from his spot next to the corpse.

"True that" Peter nodded, defeated. "And I am the one to testify, I actually went through the entire India on a motorbike. It was pretty awesome, actually, and maddening at the same time. The traffic was the worst. You should definitely do it once in your life, but be prepared. It is a lot to take in and quite chaotic. Only thing they would stop for is a cow. There's no lanes or anything, it's all like by suggestion. So the pecking order goes like: big truck, small truck, van, car, jeep, motorcycle, pedestrian, bike, and on top of everything is…Cow. The only thing that will stop traffic in India is a cow. After that…Just…Don't die."

"I didn't know you travelled to India" Olivia's eyes twinkled, intrigued.

"What can I tell you, Dunham, get to know me a bit" Peter smiled back.

"And what is that divine smell?" Olivia changed the subject as her cheeks burnt.

She couldn't exactly refrain herself from saying that, widening her nostrils to inhale whatever it was that smelled so good, pleasantly surprised.

"Ah, Agent Dunham" Walter came over to them, leaving the body for the moment. "I am surprised you don't know the answer to that, after so many cases we have worked on together. The smell you are currently breathing in is a distinct chemical cocktail of a family of molecules known as esters, which all have a strong odours including those produced by pineapples, raspberries, blackberries and apples. To put it simply, it's a smell of a dead body." He concluded with a grin.

"Ugh" Olivia immediately stopped her inhalation process. "But" she added cautiously. "It's more of a coconut smell."

"Um" Peter launched a shy smile at her. "That's because Walter was baking again."

"Already?" Astrid was surprised. "But you guys haven't been here for…Like what…Two hours all by yourselves?"

"Apparently, that's what it takes for Walt to get all homey on the lab" Peter shrugged with a smile.

"I made Nanaimo bars with coconut and cherry flavour" the scientist said proudly. "Now, Agent Dunham, would you care for a sample? I would say that you are a coconut girl yourself."

"Sure, maybe later. I am more interested in seeing what you've got so far" she nodded with a small smile.

"I was telling Peter I couldn't wait to see your face as you eat up my bar" senior Bishop went on and Peter just turned away from the scene without being able to handle the embarrassment. He hurried on to answer Olivia's inquiry.

"Not much, really. We managed to complete the autopsy and confirm what the body scan and Broyles's claims were telling us all along. Now Walter is working on to determining the cause. He seems to think her brain is the key. If anything, mind presiding over matter might be the solution."

"Like what?" Astrid sounded surprised. "You think that her brain somehow told her body to redistribute the order of her internal organs and to change her behaviour all of a sudden? Is that even possible? By the way, Walter" she tapped her belly contentedly. "This cherry flavoured bar is amazing. And yes, don't give me that look, Peter. I know that just a month ago I was grossed out because of both of you regularly at in the lab and in the proximity of dead bodies, but I guess I got used to it all" she smiled to Bishop Junior.

"One of us, one of us, one of us" Peter began the creepy chanting and then stopped realizing no one was understanding the reference. "And to answer your question, we are not quite sure. About to launch the full neural scan though." He noticed Olivia was no longer with them.

She was now staring at the corpse, looking deeply in thought.

"Hey" he risked a tender placement of his hand on Olivia's shoulder and held his palm there, trying to transfer all the warmth and support he could to his now obviously bothered partner. "Olivia, are you okay? What's wrong?"

"I was thinking, Peter. What drove her to do this? Why would she possibly… I mean. I just can't understand it."

"We will get to the bottom of it, I promise" his palm clasped her shoulder a bit firmer and Olivia closed her eyes for the moment, enjoying his proximity and reassurance.

 _He always knows what to say._

"I just interrogated her students and well…I am sad. And angry. I hate it that young people have to see such things in their early age. And get disappointed in humanity, in human nature so soon."

"This isn't just about the students, is it?" came a whisper of a question from Peter.

 _How is Peter always so perceptive?_ Olivia wondered, surprised. He caught her unawares and she wasn't sure whether she should shrug off the question of reply, thinking of Ella's possible disillusionment in her father, Greg.

"No, it's not" she admitted finally, with a small nod.

"But.." Peter could see hesitance in her eyes.

"That's a story for another time." Olivia exhaled.

He merely nodded patiently, without pushing her for answers.

Peter knew Olivia would tell him when she was ready.

The strange tender thread of connection that was just being woven between them was interrupted by the sharp phone ring, and it jerked them both away from the stupor.

Name "Broyles" was written all over the screen and faces of all four Fringe division members were filled with dread.

"Dunham."

"There's been another case. Jane Spiker Jordan murdered her husband in cold blood and then proceeded to the supermarket and murdered three more before the local policeman managed to stop her. First X-ray scans confirm the same situation as with Eliza Tanner. The body is on its way."


	7. Ajax

**OLIVIA** sighed tiredly and glanced over at Peter.

"Lemme guess," he empathized. "That was Broyles, right?"

She shrugged her shoulders and briefly rubbed her temples.

"Yeah. More victims."

"Look. Olive...Olivia. I know that everything feels hopeless right now but trust me, this is good. We are making progress."

"Peter, how can this possibly be any good? More people are dying and I... I mean... We have just gotten here."

He felt her distress deeply and wanted to say the right words.

To reassure that fierce Special Agent persona she had within her.

It was almost always the predominant persona, now that Peter came to think of it.

 _The only way she can be reassured is by solving the case, by winning this. Stopping more lives being lost._

Peter remembered her reacting exactly the same during one of their very first cases: girls with the extracted pituitary glands.

They were dropping like flies all around them in serial killerish fashion kind of way and everything Olivia would say or do to the Bishops was: "Tell me you got something." She would repeat that like a mantra over and over again, clinging for hope, pricking her ears at their every word.

 _She trusts us to solve it, to get to the bottom of this._

 _I have to focus Walt and we have to... Pounce on every possible clue._

In some kind of a weird way, getting Olivia what she wanted made him pleased and fulfilled as well. Peter just hated seeing her miserable and cornered. And this mystery was proving to be one of the strangest of them all yet.

A screech of tyre tracks was heard in front of their make shift lab and Walter did a little excited dance.

"Ooh, another body for us to explore and we haven't even quite finished with the first one!"

Peter was about to shut him up or to gesture him to tone down his excitement. He sknew how Olivia was sensitive to that kind of thing but he saw she actually managed a little smile and went with a joke instead.

"He is like a child happy about his new toy or a special brand of candy he knows he will get to try, isn't he? But you gotta admit he is growing on you."

"Yeah." Olivia nodded in earnest watching Walter run outside.

Shouts of displeasure were heard all throughout the hallway soon afterwards.

"Getting the body out feet first! Lunatics! That's unheard of! I should have been the one to ride with the body. Out, out! Shoo! Out, when I tell you!" Walter was now waving hands at the agents who were bringing in the corpse.

"Sir, would you be so kind so as to move," an elderly lady sounded irritated. "We need to get this body to the lab. Are you even authorized to be here?"

Peter snickered knowing that chaos would ensue.

Just as he had predicted, his father fumed.

"Am I authorized? Such presumptuousness! You are bringing body for examination over to me, just so you know!"

The incredulousness mirrored in woman's tone of voice.

"You are doctor Walter Bishop?"

"The one and only," Peter hurried to meet them with a wide smile and somehow try to remedy the situation. "I am his son, personal assistant and babysitter, Peter Bishop." Would you be so kind so as to bring the body over here? Thank you..."

"You see, Walt?" he whispered into his father's ear. "That's how it's done. We gotta show them Bishop Boys have some manners."

"Ah, sometimes the most unexpected personas, no matter how small and insignificant they might seem..."

Peter knew who this voice belonged to and he smiled and rolled his eyes simultaneously.

"You forgot to add: no matter how insane they might seem," he muttered and the voice went on, approaching, accompanied with what was Broyles's dry cough.

"can change the course of time, history as we know it and alter everything around is in most unexpected ways." Constable Liam Murray finished his tirade nodding amicably to everyone.

"Yes, excuse me. I forget myself," Walter winked at Peter.

He apparently decided to follow suite as far as the manners speech was concerned.

"I have been such a poor host, do forgive me. Would you care for a Nanaimo bar? I have baked a ton, you see. It makes me feel more like at home. And I have to thank them somehow for these bags of frozen meat they so generously supplied me with."

"Walter, these people are here to work. I am pretty sure they don't want to..." Peter's voice trailed off as he was proven wrong once more.

The agents gathered around the tray happily eating away the bake goodness.

"Haha!" Walter exclaimed triumphantly. And that's where you are wrong, my son!"

Peter shrugged. He had to admit that Walt was actually right this time round.

"Let me just ask you something. What bags of frozen meat are you talking about?" Peter turned around with a puzzled expression on his face.

"That's her husbands body." Broyles explained, wrinkling his forehead in disgust.

"So…She chopped him up, just like that?" Peter shook his head in disbelief.

"Apparently." Broyles replied laconically, accentuating every syllable.

"Hey guys," Astrid came to stand by Peter and Olivia and smiled. "Is it me or all the law enforcement representatives have a sweet tooth?"

"Nah," Peter bumped her on a shoulder. "You have been watching too many cop movies, Agent Farnsworth. Take Olivia, for example." he was trying to shake her out of the pensive stupor.

"I myself saw her throw a doughnut to the trash can, so there you have it."

"It's another female!" Walter diverted their attention from food and onto the body. "Perhaps the organ reversal strikes only ladies! If she proves to be in her forties as well, we shall coin another theory based on menopausia and climacteric reversal!" he was absolutely jubilant.

"Walter... You know that's chauvinism, right?"

"Facts, dead boy, merely stating the facts!"

"If you say so..." Peter shook his head at Olivia.

Broyles coughed.

"She most certainly was not 'menopausal', as you describe her, doctor Bishop. The woman, Mrs Jane Jordan and her husband, Mr Thomas Jordan were a couple of newlyweds in their early twenties and they had just rented a home to live in. I trust this will be of interest to you, Agent Dunham," he nodded sternly. "The house they had just moved into was a home of... Eliza Tanner."

"Wait, I am still a bit foggy due to a jet lag over here but are you seriously saying they had just rented Eliza Tanner's house?" Peter couldn't believe his ears.

"That's just too much of a coincidence," Olivia pondered.

"Agent Broyles…What happened, exactly?" young curly haired woman seemed taken aback by such a swift new crime. "I mean... This thing with Eliza Tanner happened mere two days ago. We just got here, we barely had the time to interrogate some witnesses and Walter and Peter just started on the body."

"I agree, Agent Farnsworth," Broyles was as dry as always. "The speed with which the crimes are propagating in an otherwise small town is alarming. Yet we believe we have found the connection."

"We have?" Olivia's face shone like a beacon of hope in the dark night.

"Yes. That's precisely the reason why I had called Constable Murray to me, before I sent any of you to the field. I needed him to try and get the search warrant and arrange the 'chat' with the real estate agent."

"Real estate agent, Sir? I'm afraid I don't follow." Olivia seemed perplexed.

"The bride and groom from Vancouver have just moved into Mission. They rented a house in this town, right after the wedding."

Peter thought Broyles's voice sounded strangely ominous but he was patient and decided to wait out the revelation he was sure was coming.

"Into the house of the late Eliza Tanner." Broyles ended poignantly and with the serious, gravelly tone of voice, leaving everyone open mouthed.

"Sooo...The house is somehow the connection." cogs were whirring in Peter's head. "Be careful everyone, we have a killer household on the loose. It chews up its tenants and makes a sinister copies out of them!"

"This is not a joking matter, Mr. Bishop," Broyles sounded furious yet his facial muscles didn't move an inch. Peter found it admirable.

"Oh, I wasn't joking at all, I assure you, Mr. Broyles." Walter was extremely apologetic when he looked at the Senior Agent.

"I didn't mean..." Broyles went to explain it to elder Bishop but then he seemingly gave up. "Nevermind. Now that the body is here I need you at the crime scene. Mr Bishop and Agent Dunham, you will be joining Constable Murray at the house of Eliza Tanner. Examine everything. Leave no stone unturned. Agent Dunham, you will be questioning the real estate guy. Mr Bishop, you will collect samples and take them to your father. Agent Farnsworth, you will be helping Dr. Walter Bishop during the autopsy."

They all dutifully nodded and headed to their designated locations.

"So, how do you wanna play this, Constable?" Peter inquired cheerfully. "Come ride with us. We Americans get around by car. Even if it's just a two minute drive around the block." He snickered.

"I am thankful for your offer, Mr. Bishop, but I believe I shall take a walk", stetson hat rose up in the air unequivocally. "The fresh air clears the sinuses and neural pathways," was the last thing they heard him say before he stepped out of the laboratory.

"Not to mention that there are several diners on the way between the lab and Eliza Tanner's house", Peter giggled. "Perhaps our young Constable wishes to treat himself with a hearty brunch."

Olivia smiled. "He does seem to enjoy life."

"No kiddin'. If he hadn't told us he was twenty-something I would have mistaken him for an old man from Tibet spurting out life advices" Peter grinned back.

His boss chuckled at that and he took it as a good sign. "So, we ready to go? I've got the bag of goodies for sample taking right here."

"Do you really want us to go by car?" she was amused by his suggestion. "Maybe we should have taken a walk as well."

"I was thinking, Agent Dunham…It's going to be a two minute drive. Why not, just for this once, let the little old me drive a car? I am always a copilot. Don't you think I should have some fun too?"

She seemed to think it over long and hard. Peter could be incredibly adorable in order to get what he wanted and she wondered about his motif.

 _Well, I guess I will find that out once we are in the car_ , Olivia sighed and gave up.

"Sure, why not. But just this once," she emphasized the last sentence as her eyebrow shot up into the air.

"Done deal, Dunham," he winked back at her.

As soon as they sat down his boyish demeanour became wicked and she thought inwardly she wasn't surprised at all at this transformation.

"Where's the siren on this thing?" Peter inquired offhandedly, as if he were completely disinterested in the answer.

"Is that why you wanted to drive?" Olivia nodded knowingly. "There" she motioned, unable to hide a smile. Peter sometimes amused her to no end.

"Everyone should get to do this at least once in their lifetime" Peter said, mirthfully, as he was turning it on.

Olivia was grateful that it was going to be just a two minute drive since they were drawing too much attention on themselves as it was.

Townsfolk were turning around and staring at them, curious and frightened at the same time; Olivia shook her head disapprovingly, but gently.

 _That's Peter for you_.

Upon arrival, it didn't take them long to locate the real estate agent.

"So, you take him and I'll go in the house and snoop around?" Peter jumped over the yellow "POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS" tape. "I wonder where Murray is," he added.

"Yeah, we haven't seen him since we arrived" Olivia was surprised as well.

"Oh well, nothing to worry about, I suppose. He'll find us, I'm sure. He's creepy like that".

When they both approached the balding, stocky man, he was muttering to himself. "Damnation. Now no one will want to rent it."

His face shone all of a sudden when he saw them. Peter thought he had that "business opportunity approaching" glint in his eye.

"I can see that you are not from around here, are you? Let me introduce myself. I am a real estate agent and I can show you the house should you wish to rent or buy it. Let me guess! You are a newlywed couple looking for the home of your dreams. In that case, I shall give you a special discount.

"Special Agent Olivia Dunham. I am with the FBI." She flashed the badge routinely and the man opened and closed his mouth several times, gulping like a fish on a dry land.

 _This information has come as a bit of a shock to him, and it's not wonder._ Peter snickered.

Peter flash his credentials and spoke up in a cocky voice, imitating Olivia's posture which unnerved her a bit.

"Peter Bishop, with the Department of Homeland security".

Olivia went on.

"As I understand, you are the real estate agent who rented the house to the deceased couple. May I ask you some questions about the house and about what exactly might have happened here?"

"I'll let the lady take over from here" Peter winked and those were his last words before he headed into the house.

"You're with the FBI? Figures. The fact that you are here is the proof." He made a disapproving sound. "Now no one will want to rent it."

"You are referring to the house?" Olivia inquired mildly. She knew very well how frustrated he was, being in such business.

"Yes, of course. It must be haunted or cursed. Eliza Tanner spends her first night there and then this couple spends their first night there and lo and behold, they turn into cold blooded murderers." he raised both of his hands exasperatedly, flapping them helplessly in the air. Olivia thought he looked a bit comical but she quickly reprimanded herself.

"Have my agents shown you a search warrant?" she changed the subject towards a more formal one.

"They have, not to worry. Of course I will allow you to investigate the goings on" he nodded vigorously, apparently wanting to seem collaborative. "There is no problem whatsoever. Of course, there isn't much of it left. That nutcase who butchered her husband unleashed her rage on the furniture too. It's a gory horror movie on the inside. Walls are splattered with blood, almost everything is destroyed… It won't be easy to rent this house again, I am telling you. Not at the state which it is in. Most of the things will go to the antique shop or that's where the company will try to ship them. And that's not all. The mass murder is all over the news. All channels, Internet… Name it. The rumours about the house have spread and the journalists now call it ´The House of Madness´."

"That's taking it a bit too far, don't you think?" Olivia inquired pensively, mulling over the monologue statement the real estate agent had just given her.

He seemed honest enough, downtrodden with the news he had received.

Olivia didn't think he had anything to do with the strange happenings, particularly due to the fact that he would have much to lose.

Some things he said made her think, especially the phrases such as "haunted" and "cursed"; but also, the statement that whenever people spent just one night in the house, they would turn into cold-blooded murderers.

 _Why didn't her husband become a cold-blooded murderer? Or maybe he would have but she killed him in sleep?_

She decided she would enter and try to deduce exactly what had been going on in the house in the past several hours.

"One last question", she turned towards the real estate agent. "Can you describe the couple to me? What did they look like to you? Was there something about them that struck you as odd, maybe?" Olivia was hoping to get a positive answer.

"Now that you mention it… The man was incredibly nervous and in a foul mood. He was constantly correcting the way I was pronouncing his surname and the woman…well.."

"Was there something about her that could indicate that she would…You know…Do what she did?" Olivia almost whispered.

"None. In fact, it was just the opposite, you know. That's what's strange. She seemed so calm and obedient, soft, and sweet. I heard him shouting at her once they were inside the place, since the window was open and I still hadn't driven away with my car. She was begging and apologizing."

Olivia was puzzled. She still didn't know what to make of such statement for the time being. She thanked the man and thought it was high time she entered the house and inspected it. Clues could be hidden anywhere.

Just as Olivia was about to pass through the front door, she stopped dead in tracks and looked left.

 _That has got to be one of the most ridiculous sights I have ever seen and that's counting this last year, the year in which I met Walter._

Constable Murray was kneeling on all fours in front of what it looked like a dog house. His head was in a dog bowl and he seemed to be…

 _Tasting the pellets?_ Olivia grimaced in disbelief.

 _Can he seriously be…_

Eerily enough, almost as if he had heard her thoughts, Murray stood up, still with a stray pellet in his mouth, savoring it as if it were some kind of an exquisite meal.

"Hmm…A fine quality pellet indeed. Grain free. I can not certify the brand from a single sampling, I am thinking Orijen, Acana or Canagan; but one thing's for sure. This dog was well looked after", he concluded, pleased, with a reassured face, oblivious to Olivia's expression that was somewhere between horrified and about to burst into laughter.

"Oh, agent Dunham. Sorry. How rude of me. I didn't see you there." He took off his hat as a sign of respect.

"Constable Murray" Olivia found herself to be a bit breathless.

It was one thing to see Walter doing these kind of things, because, well…Senior Bishop was certified crazy. This man seemed so at peace with himself. no matter what he was doing.

Olivia thought it must have made people around him believe all of his actions have a unique purpose.

Instead of mocking him, she felt deep respect for the young Constable and his way of thinking.

 _After all, I had seen it work in Walter. Whenever he was at his weirdest, that's when the breakthroughs seemed to happen._

"I have just established that the couple had a dog. A long haired breed or so it seems. There are soft white and grayish hairs all around this wooden dog house".

Olivia half expected him to put dog hair in his mouth next.

"The modicum size of the feces surrounding the area are an indicator that the dog must have been young and still growing, probably around five to six month of age. Still a puppy" a tender smile flashed over Murray's face.

Then he got serious.

"Forgive me, Agent Dunham. My behaviour might seem somewhat erratic to you, but you will, as a fellow colleague and an excellent seeker yourself, understand me when I tell you that I am merely orienting myself towards crime scene elements. Later on, I will rearrange them in my mind and try to look for conjectures, things they might have in common and that will lead me to certain conclusions."

"That's a very sherlockholmish way of looking at things" Peter cheerfully emerged of the hut, waving a plastic bag in his hand. "Sherlockholmish? Sherlockholmesque? How do you even say it? Is there an adjective for such a thing?" he smiled. "And oh, by the way. There was nothing interesting to sample in there, at least not while I was checking the place out on my own. But on the other hand…Ta-da!" He exclaimed proudly, waving his arm. "You guys will never guess what. I found the head."

"Her…Husband's…head?" Olivia was dumbfounded. "I thought…It was with Walter…With the rest of the body."

"Me too. It was in the freezer, actually" Peter scratched his head. "She was obviously making some mean reserves for the long Canadian winter. I'm surprised the agents haven't checked there, too, but hey, when you have couple of bags filled with tiny 200 g chopped up body parts, you probably don't open up the bag, sit down and count them all to see if everything's there. That's Walt's job and I'm sure that he will call us soon to yell about the fact the head is missing."

"He looks peaceful even at the moment of his passing." Murray whispered and Peter jumped, unaccustomed for people to sneak up on him like that. Then the Constable took the frozen hand and placed it on his palm, removing his hat out of respect and reciting in a gravelly voice.

To be, or not to be, that is the question: 

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer 

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles 

And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep, 

No more; and by a sleep to say we end 

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks 

That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation 

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; 

To sleep, perchance to dream.

"Awesome. And he is now quoting Shakespeare. That's perfect." Peter cracked up.

"Oh, that's not all. You should have been here a moment ago, when he was sampling the dog food." Olivia giggled. "But I'm sure it will all help us in the long run." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Agent Olivia Dunham, approving the unorthodox methods of the wall of weird? Well now I've heard everything. You've been spending too much time with us Bishops…Hey, wait. Did you say ´sampling dog food´?" he suddenly looked incredibly anxious and Olivia couldn't quite understand why.

"Yeah. That's exactly what I…" Before she could finish the sentence, a huge incredibly fast mass of grey and white fur flew as a bullet through the garden, some kind of chain clattering up behind it, and it fell upon Peter, bringing him down onto the floor in one swift leap.

He found himself eye to eye with an elongated snout and steel blue irises that gave him an intelligent overlook before a warm tongue flickered all over his forehead, hair, cheeks and mouth, lovingly nipping at his ears.

"Hey… Down boy" he couldn't stop smiling, half hugging the dog, half trying to get up. "Good boy" Peter repeated and then his face looked horror stricken all of a sudden.

"Oh no."

"What's wrong, Peter?" Olivia couldn't comprehend the reason for younger Bishop's distress.

"Oh, the mysterious dog has appeared" Constable Murray threw the head away carelessly and ran towards the animal to inspect it, as its front paws still rested on Peter. "I must say, I was absolutely spot on as far as his age and colour were concerned. A flawless specimen of Border Collie Blue Merle, the most intelligent breed in the world."

"Have I mentioned I am allergic to dogs?" Peter's eyes were quickly becoming red and watery, as angry red patches appeared all over his skin. He sneezed once and the puppy inclined its head to the right inquisitively.

"On second thought" he added, barely whispering and clutching at his own throat. "Maybe Walt can make him non allergenic".


	8. The House of Madness

**THE LABORATORY** somehow managed to look even stranger than usual A man waving a plastic bag with a frozen head inside followed by an eye rolling blond agent and another man who was incessantly sneezing and whose face was hard to discern.

Yet it was nothing in comparison to the brisk appearance of the cheerful young dog who literally stormed inside, barking cheerfully and making everything around it fall on the floor with a loud "clang".

"Constable Murray", Broyles wore a flabbergasted expression on his worried, focused face. "Is that a…skull?" his voice then become a little more than a whisper.

"As a matter of fact, it is" Murray replied in earnest. "A quite well preserved human skull, for which we believe that not so long ago, it used to belong to one Mr. Thomas Spiker Jordan; a newlywed husband of a now deceased Mrs. Jane Spiker Jordan. A sad business, a sad business indeed" he stared at the skull pointedly, seeming truly desolate.

"How on earth did you manage to…" Broyles eventually managed to abstain himself to inquire any further. "After all this time, I suppose it is high time for me to make peace with the fact that all geniuses are insane."

"Oh my God, whose dog is that?" Astrid was the one to exclaim loudly in wonder and enthusiasm. "He looks adorable! Probably not even half a year old yet! Is that a… A Border Collie? Oh, wow! Did you know they are supposed to be…"

Peter's disfigured voice interrupted her as he was trailing behind Dunham and Murray, having difficulty breathing.

"Yeah, yeah, the most intelligent breed in the world and blabbity blah…he is an absolute darling, isn't he?" younger Bishop sneezed twice indignantly. "Where is Walter?"

"Walt is having fun in the back".

"Composing a jigsaw puzzle out of the freshly plucked carcass, I presume?" Peter nodded knowingly. Olivia looked at him with disgust.

"How did you even…"

"Oh, believe me, Agent Dunham. I know what my father's idea of fun is."

"Is that Peter I am hearing? Have they finally returned? How was the old house? How was Rufus?"

"Rufus?" Olivia inquired in confusion.

"Umm…It's a long story, that's our old dog," Peter cast an apologetic glance in her direction. "I don't know how to break this to you, Dorothy, but you aren't in Kansas anymore."

"What's that, son?"

"That was me reminding you that we aren't in Boston, Massachusetts and that we currently temporarily reside in Mission, Canada. So there is no old house, and there most certainly is no Rufus since the pooch passed away long time ago."

"Oh." Walter nodded pensively, looking a tad melancholic. "I am sorry to hear that." He added in a whisper. "One tends to miss many…Important occurrences when he is locked up and isolated from the rest of the world, in a place where time and space come to a standstill."

An unpleasant silence followed his declaration and Astrid came to stand next to him in order to calm him down, patting his arm awkwardly.

It seemed to do him good since Walter got interested in his surroundings yet again. When his gaze fell on the inquisitive dog who was now sniffing around the corpse and squealing sadly, he lounged towards Peter and pushed him as far away from the young animal as he could, bringing several vials down in the process.

"Walter, what are you…" Olivia was taken aback by his action. She was perhaps even more astounded by Broyles's passiveness.

Her boss simply shrugged his shoulders.

"I suppose…" he said slowly, "I have long ago made peace with the fact that all geniuses are somewhat insane. "

"Peter, get away from that dog! You know you are allergic to dogs!"

"Yeah, pops, thank you for that friendly reminder. I have noticed it when the dog jumped on top of me and licked me all over my face. He seems to like me a lot." Peter was now positively wheezing, gasping for breath.

Angry red patches were still showing on his face and he sneezed several times.

He felt Olivia's hand on his shoulder next.

"Maybe you should come over here and sit for a while." She sounded concerned. Peter was inwardly pleased with that particular discovery.

Then Olivia's tone of voice changed, as if she were ashamed of herself and she turned to Walter.

"Walter. Peter said you were able to make the dog non-allergenic. Is that true? Can it be done and how fast can you do it?"

"Of course it can be done. Almost anything can be done if you put your will and mind to it. I already did it once with Rufus. Now, it's a common misconception that the allergy to cats and dogs is caused by the hair of aforementioned animals." Walter entered his teaching mode. "People actually have allergy to the protein which is continuously produced in dog's urine and saliva." He lifted a finger in the air. "The only thing I have to do is to neutralise the activity of the effector protein. Thus, I shall neutralise its effect on Peter. That can be done by formulation of monoclonal antibody."

"How long is this going to take?" Olivia was practical.

"Oh, not long at all. It should be ready soon" Walter replied. "I just need a saliva sample from the dog."

"That shouldn't be the problem seeing how he is drooling all over the laboratory equipment" the old scientist's son was now observing dogs ministrations grumpily.

"This is, of course, just temporary, I understand? We need Peter not to react to the dog in order for the team to be able to work?" Walter inquired.s

"Hey Walt, who knows? Maybe I will take him back to Boston" Peter half-joked. "I remember way back when I was a kid, I eavesdropped on you and Mom, you were both arguing about whether we should get a dog or not. She was all in favour, saying that it will teach me responsibility and emotionally…stabilize me? Was that how she put it… So now it seems like a good time to educate me further." He winked at Astrid and Olivia.

"Peter, no! Absolutely not! We can't have a dog at a lab in Harvard. Think about how it might upset Gene. She may stop giving milk altogether. Border collies are herding dogs and imagine what would happen to the poor cow if he tried to herd her or even worse, attack her!" Walter sounded beside himself with grief and fear.

"Hey Walter! Here's a newsflash for you. Border collies are incredibly intelligent and highly trainable. Therefore, he might be taught not to stress the good old Gene. At least, no more than me when I was eating a burger in front of her." Peter joked around.

Constable Murray intervened. "I am rather fond of dogs. As a matter of fact, the average dog is a far nicer person than the average person. Your son is lucky, Mr. Bishop, to have been chosen by this young canine specimen who will undoubtedly be his loyal friend and protect him from the perils to come. No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation more than your dog. Dogs don't rationalise. They don't hold anything against a person. They don't see the outside of a human but the inside of a human."

"So if the dog chose him first over everyone else in the group, does that mean that Peter is actually good on the inside?" Astrid teased. "Who would have guessed?"

Murray went on with his preaching. "You told me you already had a dog, yes? You know then, that once you have had a wonderful, loyal dog, a life without one, is a life diminished. It teaches a boy fidelity, and perseverance."

"I…I suppose you're right, Mr…."

"Murray" Constable was amused by Walter's forgetfulness.

"Mr Murray, yes! The dog will do good to a boy. It will do him good." Walter nodded one more time as if reassuring himself of the decision.

"Well, when I could not convince you father, I am glad that you got swayed by the enumeration of various philosophical quotes related to dogs." Peter scoffed, seeing how Walter already walked over to the puppy.

"Who has beautiful blue eyes, who?" old scientist dressed the dog as if he were a child and the dog waved his tail. "Can you sit, boy?"

The dog immediately sat down.

"Lie down. Roll over. Jump!" the commands ensued and the dog obeyed every single one of them.

"This dog is perfectly trained." Walter was surprised.

"He will do good on police task force, like in that movie 'K-9'" Peter half joked. "We definitely should keep him to help us explore the unknown, we could be like Scooby Doo and the gang."

"Then you would be Shaggy?" Olivia teased him good-naturedly.

"Special Agent Olivia Dunham knows about children's TV show? Now that is a plot twist."

"Hey, I was a child, too!" she protested jokingly.

"Then you could be like a mix of Daphne and Velma, I suppose" Peter went on. "Brains and looks, two in one."

When he realised what he had just said, he went red in face but no one seemed to notice their banter, so he was saved from public humiliation.

Olivia did hear him, though, he was certain of that, as Peter noticed the red colour tinging her cheeks. As many times before this one, she chose to ignore his remarks. This time, Peter was actually grateful to her for doing so.

"All it remains is to name the dog," Astrid astutely steered the conversational ship towards a different harbour. "I mean, we can't go on calling him 'dog'. "

"Rufus II" Walter announced in a celebratory tone. "It is only proper. The origin of the name Rufus dates to the Roman cognomen that meant 'red haired' in Latin. No wonder that name was frequently used for Irish Setter breed. Also, several early saints had this name, including one mentioned in one of Paul's epistles in the New Testament. As a nickname it was used by William II Rufus, a king of England, because of his red hair. It came into general use in the English-speaking world after the Protestant Reformation", Walter concluded proudly.

"And he just knew all those facts without even looking them up on the internet" Astrid stuttered in admiration.

"Well, that's Walt for you, a walking encyclopaedia." Peter smiled. "But weren't you the one who was just saying lately that 'an apple doesn't fall far from the tree' and 'like father like son'?"

"I suppose so, yes" Astrid replied cautiously and Olivia smiled with genuine interest.

"What I am about to say now will, sadly, prove your hypothesis" , Peter facepalmed himself with a sigh.

"First of all, Walter: we are not naming the dog Rufus II because we are not some kind of royal family or something; in addition, I already had a dog named Rufus and I think it's dumb to name the other dog same as the previous one. And finally, this dog already has a name which was written in a clear red paint on his doghouse in the garden of the house of madness we just went to and it's quite a nice name of a Greek origin."

"He does?" senior Bishop sounded disappointed.

"Walter, the dog is six months old. The owners have probably had him for at least three or four months. Didn't it occur to you that he had already been named? Sheesh."

"What's he called, then?" Walter leaned forward with interest.

"His name is Ajax. Known as Ajax the Great and stronger than dirt. He figures prominently in the Trojan War. Renowned for his great strength and good looks, he was considered the second best-looking man in Greece. Although I have no idea how they even got to that data or who was the first best-looking man in Greece at the time but there you have it. He is described as being fearless, courageous and as having great combat intelligence. So basically, name your dog Ajax if you are seeking an intelligent, courageous guard dog of colossal size and strength. The name half suits him. He seems to be smart, inquisitive and brave, but I don't know about colossal size and strength, and about that part of him being a guard dog" Peter leered simultaneously trying to ward off the dog from his proximity.

Olivia helped him out by producing a handkerchief from her pocket and waving it around, leading the puppy to the other corner of laboratory. Peter sent a grateful glance her way to which she nodded, replying with a warm smile.

"I hope that you have settled the dispute regarding what the animal is going to be called" Broyles's cold tone brought them back into the reality. "Can we now please focus on the case at hand? This is a second victim already that has fallen prey to the unknown organ reversal phenomena. Have you found a possible explanation for that?" he spun around to face Astrid, after having noticed that Walter was tinkering with what he inwardly called 'cure for allergy', not remembering the exact scientific term senior Bishop used minutes before.

"We didn't really advance much, no" Astrid sighed and buried her face in her hands, grabbing a nearby chair. "I was mostly trying to focus Walter for the best part of the last two hours. As soon as the new bodies arrived, he dropped everything and landed them on a huge autopsy table. Walter drew similar conclusion for the wife's body as for the body of the late teacher Eliza Tanner; but it wasn't that easy with the unfortunate husband. He wanted to put all the pieces in the correct order and he immediately noticed that the head was missing. Then Walter went into a fit, he kept repeating he didn't want to work if there was no head and I had to reassemble the patchwork course on my own while he was playing 'Operation'. "

"The game?" Broyles was astounded. "Perhaps I should have sent you on the field again and left Mr. Bishop with his father. I didn't know he was going to fall out of focus."

Walter lifted his head.

"Do not underestimate the game, Agent Broyles. If anything, it proved one thing to me: the state which the three victims/killers were in cannot possibly be induced in any scientific or technological way now known to men."

"What does that even mean, Walter? Stop being cryptical!" Peter's headache was acting up and getting stronger so he wasn't in the mood for his father's ramblings.

"Perhaps your father means that…The bodily alterations were performed with some kind of technology from another time, possibly even…The future?" constable Murray dared to venture a guess, leaning on a lab table.

"That's… absurd…" Olivia was now running out of breath as the dog was chasing her around the laboratory in a playful expression of his affection. "How could it possibly…"

"Let's say that that's hypothetically possible" Peter calmed down and tried to focus his thoughts. "It would mean that they were exposed to some kind of object that made them like this, that somehow…reversed their inner organs?"

"Precisely so, my son." Walter replied. "If I had to guess, I would say that the object may have come from the very house the unfortunate people were living in, seeing how they were all affected after spending mere night in that place."

"Yay, I can already see a new advertisement on the way" Peter muttered, resigned and phlegmatic. "Hear ye, hear ye! Spend a night in our House of Madness! Become a whole new person in the morning, with possible homicidal tendencies!"

"Jokes aside" Olivia looked at Peter sternly and he immediately hushed down under her gaze. "We do need to discover what kind of object or technological piece might be able to do that to a person. And we need to find it immediately. I am going to call the real estate agent and tell him to immediately suspend all advertisements for either renting or selling the house."

"No offence, Olivia, but I don't think he was having much success in either of those things, especially now after the house has become a crime scene." Peter joked trying to defuse the tension. "But you're right" he hurried on, not wanting to irritate her even further. "We should get to the bottom of it and fast, before anyone else gets hurt. We did search the entire house along with the team of policemen but there might be something that we overlooked. Perhaps strange stuff happens in the house only during the night and it's therefore necessary to spend the night there?" he asked himself a rhetorical question.

"Peter, you actually might be onto something!" Olivia exclaimed. "We should try and do that!", she turned to Broyles enthusiastically. "With your permission, of course, sir" she added a bit more calmly moments later.

"Permission granted. One night only. If Dr Bishop's hypothesis proves to be wrong and there is no such object, or the house is not connected to the strange biological alterations on human bodies, I want you on another, different lead as soon as possible. This crime has to be solved, and fast, before more victims pile up" Broyles was determined. "Oh and…perhaps take the dog with you as well. He might prove useful" he added before muttering about some paperwork that was there to squash and he headed out of the laboratory and into his temporarily assigned new office.

"Another thing worries me" Constable Murray added after Agent Broyles left, as he absently moving his stetson hat left and right. "Only the kitchen was labeled as a crime scene and dutifully marked with the usual yellow tape. Yet the rest of the house wasn't marked so. I overheard the real estate agent contacting a man from an antique shop to whom he sold almost all of the furniture and the valuables for a relatively cheap price. As soon as the agency realised they will no longer be able to rent or sell that house, I guess they made a bold move and simply sold almost everything from it with the exception of the kitchen utensils and furniture."

"Good catch, Constable" Olivia praised him. "While Peter and I are in the house, can you try and trace the name of the antique shop in particular? Check whether the objects are already there or they are still on their way with the delivery truck. If the house trail goes cold we have to examine every single one of the sold pieces even though we didn't think they might have anything to do with the murder at first."

Murray raised his hat in respect. "At your service, Madam" he bowed before following Broyles's example and quietly leaving the lab.

"Astrid" Olivia turned towards her with guilt in her eyes.

Blonde agent knew all too well her colleague wanted to spend more days out in the field but this time it just wasn't possible.

Astrid wasn't "out there" enough to be able to come with Olivia to this particular house stakeout, and Peter had already been through many life threatening situations. He was more adaptable in that regard.

She also knew Astrid understood that but she hated leaving her in the laboratory.

Again.

"I know, I know" Junior Agent Farnsworth nodded tiredly. "Watch Walter while he synthesises the antibody enzyme. I'm on it."

 **THE HOUSE OF MADNESS,** as Peter used to call it, looked even more macabre and unearthly under the feeble light of the streetlamp that cast the ominous shadows at the porch.

"Well that's cheerful" Peter muttered, for some reason not daring to raise his voice to high. The whole unhealthy creepy atmosphere affected him more than it should for some reason and he wasn't one to be easily spooked. "And… Dunham. For the record, thanks for not bringing the dog this time round even though Broyles asked you to."

"You're welcome, Peter" she nodded amicably. "I didn't do it so much for as for the sake of the case. Your incessant sneezing and complaining might have produced a lot of strange noises and that wouldn't agree well with our stakeout. Anyway, I think the dog already showed his skills right before we came back to the lab."

"Yeah, that was weird." Peter cautiously agreed. "We forgot to mention that to Broyles, didn't we? It should have been in our rapport. But what with Walter's operation game and his fright for my life… Then we got entangled with the object theory and 'how to name your dog' Disney franchise… So we didn't really get the chance."

"It's precisely the object theory that got me thinking" Olivia said, carefully opening the door that made a distinctive "screek" sound. "You know how Walter hypothesises that there is an object that had probably made people like that? Ajax was incredibly weird when we took him to sniffing rounds around the house and he didn't like being around the bedroom at all. Perhaps the object, whatever it is, is placed in the bedroom? Was." Olivia corrected herself nervously, biting her lip. "I hope Murray will have the information till tomorrow. We really need to know where all the objects from this place wounded up, and fast. Only after we examine them all can we discard that hypothesis".

"So shall we inspect the bedroom first? I can't say that's how I imagined our first time… Nor were these supposed to be my words to you on such a special occasion, Agent Dunham", Peter winked at her, trying to make her relax.

 _Olivia seems incredibly tense and wary. That's because she doesn't know… None of us knows what we're dealing with, precisely. This particular corporal anomaly and behavioural disturbance are like nothing we have ever seen before._

Bedroom inspection brought nothing. The whole room was completely empty except for the bare forlorn walls and slightly dusty floorboards. The electricity was out too so they resorted to flashlights.

"I feel like we are Moulder and Scully from the X-Files, don't you?" he grunted as he tripped on a tiny stool that the delivery truck guy had probably forgotten to take away.

"Well in that case let's better hope that an alien spaceship doesn't land on top of the roof and sends an absorbing beam towards us", she finally accepted a joke, raising her right eyebrow at his amazement. "You always seem so surprised when I understand your pop-culture references."

"Mmm… I am not looking forward an anal probe shoved up my most sensitive spot" Peter shook his head. "I would only allow a girl with a strap-on to do that. And it would have to be a girl I really… Really… Really like." He shut up promptly reminding himself whom he was talking to but sensed a relief seeing how Olivia seemed to filter his weird sentences and just take them for granted.

She knew where they were coming from and that was that. Peter was grateful that she accepted him for who he was so he went on to comment on her "pop culture reference" inquiry.

"Ehh… And I am probably surprised because I don't even see you as a human from this planet for the most time" Peter scratched his head. "You're more like some kind of a Wonder Woman hell bent on helping the humanity. Why, I have no idea. Sometimes I think us humans deserve to rot in this damn forsaken planet."

"Peter. Did you hear that?" she shushed him by placing her warm palm over his lips and he stopped dead in tracks.

"I more…sensed it? The ground kind of shuddered."

They both automatically pulled out their respective guns.

A tall bald man in a grey suit stepped out of the shadows.

Holding a fedora hat on his chest, he spun around to face the duo.


	9. Bert Trimple

**CONSTABLE MURRAY** was standing knee-deep in murky water, sniffling a bit as he was trying to remove the huge droplets from his Google Maps applications on his phone.

It was getting darker and darker by the second.

Thick comforting blanket of the rain threads was covering the entire sleepy town.

According to the directions he had been given by his so far faithful machine, "Trimple's Antiques" was supposed to be just around the corner.

He wasn't getting it at all. And then again, that particular shop was meticulously hidden away, almost on purpose, behind numerous alley ways and cul-de-sacs, in the shadiest part of Mission.

The part he had never stepped in. He didn't even dare to ask the local neighbourhood residents for help regarding the address he was so arduously searching for.

Murray felt more than a little uncomfortable. He cursed himself inwardly for not coming with back up.

When Constable Murray was upset, such as it was the case at the moment, he would take upon a peculiar habit of having a conversation with himself. "Now, now, old boy. You should not generalise. Rule number one. Never ever generalise. I shouldn't say that all people in this neighbourhood are mean and that they are all looking for trouble. It is well known that… The goodness of a person is normally judged based upon how they act towards those whom they consider to be less fortunate than themselves. This has become the standard for measuring the goodness of a person. But this is erroneous. It is in fact very easy to be good to those whom you consider to be less fortunate than yourself. You know what's difficult? Being good to those you envy and to those you fear! That is what's difficult to do! People believe themselves to practice equality because they are good to those who are lesser than they are, but this is not equality if they do not show the same amount of goodness to the people who happen to be different than they are. I always look at how a person treats those who are different than they are, and that is how I determine the goodness in a person. Because the other option is just too easy. The other option comes with all benefit and no loss. And I think I am a good person. Because I want to always be me. And be good to everyone. The ones above me, the ones below me and the ones equal to me. The ones who are the same and the ones who are different. And hope to see the best in them. Because if no one thinks so, the whole human race is rapidly hurling itself towards inevitable auto-destruction."

"Heya handsome" a short, chubby red-head girl approached him, swaying dangerously on her high heels.

She was wearing a tight fluorescent spandex dress. Her pale cheeks were tinged with black lines of what it looked like to be an obvious non-waterproof mascara.

"Good evening, Madam", Murray removed his sidekick stetson hat and placed it on his chest as a sign of respect. "Mighty drafty weather we're having tonight. Would you care for a jacket?"

"Would I care for a…" her voice changed during an incredulous reply. After she was able to take a good look at him, the girl gasped.

"A Mountie?"

"Present and accounted for" he smiled and she noticed smile reached his eyes. The girl then relaxed a little bit.

"I am sorry for bothering you, officer. I am going to be on my way now, sir" she muttered shyly ready to skulk back to the alleyway where she came from.

"Wait a moment, please…" Murray seemed uncertain of how he should address her.

He had by now guessed she was a lady of the night and he felt both uncomfortable and a little sorry for her.

"Susie" was her short answer. Constable could see she was in a hurry to leave and end the conversation.

 _Why should you be feeling sorry for her, old boy?_ He asked himself sternly. _It's an honest job like any other._

"You be wanting my services then?"

"Oh, no, no, no, nothing like that, I assure you" Murray went red in face and that was when she could appreciate how young he was.

Susie was in her early thirties and she had a little daughter waiting for her at home; yet she could have sworn the constable was even younger than her. "But, are you in the need of money? How much do you normally charge for… An encounter?" he scratched behind his ears realising how silly he looked. "I can imagine that the business ain't going so well what with all the…drizzle and the weather we're having" he coughed uncomfortably.

"Oh, no no no no, sir" she stepped back, horrified. I couldn't possibly charge you any money, especially not if the job wasn't done. And to a copper, no less."

Susie was having her doubts whether the man actually wanted to arrest her or he really wanted to assist her.

His honest, kind face led her to eventually trust his offer although she still didn't want to take his money.

"That would be unheard of, officer. A woman like…Me…Well… Taking money from someone like… You."

"It wouldn't be the first time" he shook his head sadly. "Although it definitely would be under different circumstances. You have a little girl at home, don't you, Susie?"

"That I do" she nodded solemnly. "How did you know?"

"Her photograph is about to fall out from your bag" he helped her put it back inside. "If you absolutely won't take any money then, take the jacket, at least. I have loads of others and you will have to continue working and it's mighty cold out here, as we concluded."

"Thank you" she accepted the jacket with a quiet gratitude. She couldn't shake off the curiosity, though. "What are you doing alone in this part of the town? I mean, it's not the best of the neighbourhoods. Is there some way I can help you?"

"Well, ma'm, I seem to have gotten lost. I am looking for the…. 'Trimple's Antiques shop. Damn phone isn't being of any assistance, I can tell you that."

"I know Trimple. Chubby, sad fellow. Doesn't have much money on him, he does not" Susie nodded vigorously. "He stick himself to himself, he does. Drives the furniture away, the furniture that nobody be wanting anymore and then he tries to sell it for small money. He inherited the business from his father but the business ain't going well. He never did use my services. I can show you where the shop is."

"Much obliged" Murray smiled, following her into the labyrinth of narrow streets. They walked in silence for several minutes until they finally stopped in front of the store he was after.

It seemed that it was closed.

"Rotten luck, that." The girl shrugged her shoulders. "But he lives where he works, so perhaps he's at home."

"Thank you, Susie. I would have never gotten by here without…" when Murray turned around to look her properly in the eyes, she had already disappeared the same way she appeared on his life path.

 _Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. The false moralists are bothered not by the fact that the woman is selling out her own body, but that she is selling it out of the wedlock. Perhaps Susie had no other course open to her, other than starvation, and she was in dire need to obtain food for her and her daughter. Many woman like her, left alone in that desperate life situation, might have probably taken their own lives. She has shown the most tenacious instinct for self preservation and thus she is stronger and saner than many women._

Still, he sighed contemplating Susie's fate and the fact that she probably doesn't like the job she does.

 _And that's sad. Everyone should like their own job because they will have to spend half of their lives doing it._

Murray then raised his hand and pressed the doorbell.

No one answered.

 _Well, there are two possibilities. Either he is not in or he forgot to pull the cotton balls out of his ears. This doorbell of his is pretty loud._

"Are you looking for Trimple?" senior citizen's voice boomed in his ears.

"Yes, sir. Do you happen to know where he might be?" Murray raised his eyes toward the nearby window on the first floor of a shabby building. "You see, a real estate agent gave me this address and told me that his antique shop worked pretty much during the entire day."

"He won't be back till late in the evening or at dawn. He went out of town for yet another pile of worthless rubbish that people threw out. Your best bet is to return first thing tomorrow morning, young man."

Murray felt a sense of dread that he couldn't quite explain. He just nodded quietly and thanked the man.

Window closed abruptly and he was left alone in the alleyway, savouring the rain droplets.

 _I don't know what to think about this._

 _Has Trimple been contaminated already by whatever object was in that house? Let us hope that is not so, for his sake and for the sake of all the residents in Mission._

 _I will return tomorrow as early as possible._

 **TRIMPLE** sighed as he finally hit the brake. The metallic beast he had been riding for hours roared once in defiance and then it shut up.

"Good evening, Trimple. Hard day for you today? You back earlier than I expected." a grey haired man from the first floor Trimple knew all too well nodded as a sign of salutation.

He didn't mind the old fella but that was a particularly rough night for Trimple and all he wanted was some peace and quiet.

He didn't have the strength to reply to the inquisitive questions of his snoopy neighbour.

 _Doesn't he ever sleep? It's almost midnight._

Trimple decided to play along, defeated. After all, who did he have to speak with anyway? This was at least the opportunity to complain about the unfairness of life in general.

"Don't ask. I feel like every bone in my body is broken" he muttered tiredly in return.

"Some nicely looking fella was wondering around here about four hours ago or so. He was asking for you. I didn't know when you were going to return so I told him to stop by tomorrow."

"Strange, that is. I didn't expect a visit. I have no idea who he is. And I don't wanna think about him too much. I am dead tired; yet still I have to unload the truck."

"You can do that tomorrow, man. See how late it is." The neighbour felt pity for Trimple.

"Nah, it has to be now. After all, tomorrow, it will be an even worse day than today."

"Why is that?"

"I have to go to the bank early in the morning and convince those stuck ups to postpone the payment of the instalment rate for the house."

"Tight fisted penny-pinching lot, I tell ya! All of them! When they are taking your money, they melt with kindness but when you are there to beg for a favour… now that's a whole different story" the old man foamed compassionately. "I would shoot them all!"

"I wish you could go there in my stead" Trimple muttered.

"That would do you nice, old boy! You're too good for them, and in the end, you always whistle to their tune, yes siree! But I am afraid I don't have enough money to buy a gun or a shotgun, and they probably wouldn't lend me any, tee-he!" the old neighbour now seemed to be in a good mood.

"Bah. That's just talk" Trimple muttered disappointedly. "All in all, you are just like me. You wouldn't hurt a fly. Our problem is that we don't belong in this world of big fish. We are small fry."

"But enough with heavy thoughts. Good night Trimple. Sleep tight" he yawned and second later the window was closed.

Trimple headed out of the truck, unloaded it as silently as he could and then he entered his store.

His 'house' was in the back of the store. A simple room, a kitchenette and a small shower with the toilet.

"This old fart is all I needed tonight to ruin my mood. As if it were not enough that I am returning home late, and there is no one here to greet me. There isn't even a bowl of cold soup on the table. I can bet that there is no hot water for me to take a shower. Again."

He cautiously stepped inside the cabin, only to let out a disgruntled yelp moments later.

"Of course. God damn boiler. I am completely frozen. I have a feeling I would be hot if I entered the fridge right now."

Then Trimple remembered that the fridge, just like the boiler, was broken. His whole life was slowly but assuredly going downhill.

"What else could I have hoped for? I have always been alone, like a goddamn dog." He stepped in front of the mirror he acquired earlier that afternoon from the house where mass murder had occurred, letting his towel drop on the floor.

"Look at you, Bert Trimple. What woman would want you? Ugly, fat and old?" a tear snuck into the corner of his eye as he readjusted the towel once again.

"A coward, at that. If I weren't a coward, I would have shot myself in the head a long time ago and be done with it."

He pulled out a can from the cupboard.

"Canned beans. Again. I will just eat it as fast as I can and go to sleep. It expired three months ago but I don't really care."

He thought about tomorrow's ordeal that awaited him in the bank and then he firmly closed his eyes.

Trimple was sinking into the dreamless sleep, welcoming it as an escape from the reality that surrounded him and that he hated.

 **THE MAN'S** skin was pale and almost translucent. His head was unmistakably bold and it was now glistening heavily in the darkness.

 _Mr No-Brows,_ Peter thought and he almost took a step forward to greet him. _He is the man I saw at the airport, he must be. Damn it, I totally forgot to tell Olivia about it. Or perhaps I didn't want to disturb her. Heck, maybe I myself didn't believe in what I saw._

He stopped himself on time, partially because of Olivia's restraining hand, and partially due to the fact that he now began discerning all the other man's traits.

He seemed more stoic, calm and monotone than September. He had a small notebook on him, but the weird binoculars were gone.

But what distinguished the man from the Observer they all knew and loved were his eyes and neck position. They were green and unusually cold, astute, calculating and filled with… _Hatred_? Peter wondered for the moment. _Why would the man had the reason to hate us?_ His neck was tilted as if he were a curious puppy but his gaze was sending a completely different message.

The man wrote something down in the notebook. He didn't glance up again. Moments later, he was gone.

Olivia was finally able to relax.

"Tell me you saw that."

"I did. Again" he lowered his head sheepishly.

"Wait, what do you mean by 'again'?"

"Umm… Let's just hypothetically say that I happened to see our baldylocks friend at the moment of our landing in Vancity."

"And you kept this from me why?" Peter could sense Olivia was hurt by his behaviour.

He would sometimes totally forego on the team play and she didn't like that one bit.

"Look, Olivia. I was tired. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. I didn't think it was worth mentioning. Not up till now, that is."

Olivia shrugged her shoulders and resignedly sat on the sleeping bag she had prepared.

He stretched next to her immediately, invading her personal space without a pardon, even though his sleeping bag was couple of metres away.

Peter knew the best way to deal with pondering, pouty Agent Dunham was to shower her with affection and snarkiness.

"But look at it from the bright side. Maybe I didn't lie to you at all. Who knows who I saw at the airport?"

"What do you mean?" she replied grumpily, staring somewhere past him.

"I mean…This Observer we just stumbled upon and who just happened to teleport right in front of our noses… He doesn't look like Walter's friend at all. Does he?"

"You mean to say… There are more of them."

"On the photo that Broyles showed us way back when the weird can of space soup arrived, it was always the same man. Walter's best buddy. So this encounter proves… That there are more of them."

"That **is** interesting" Olivia agreed. "And it proves one more thing. We are in the right place. Whatever caused those poor people to behave like that… The epicentre of the happenings is indeed this house. Why else would one of them bother to appear here and to track time and place events?"

"So…We do nothing? We just stay put?"

"Perhaps we should wait a bit and let events unfold" Olivia nodded.

Her instinct was almost never wrong and now it was telling her that this was the place to be; something else was bound to happen right in this place.

"Oh joy. Staying overnight in the House of Madness plan is back on the track again, folks. Just one thing, Dunham. I don't sleep well if I don't have a copious dinner beforehand."

"Soo?" her eyebrow raised in amusement.

"So how about I go down and snoop around the kitchen? Maybe there's some meat leftover in the fridge. I make mean steaks."

"Don't even kid with that, Peter" Olivia made a face. "It's ghastly."

"Nah, I was bluffing, Dunham. Just trying to lighten the mood. You of all people should know that. You saw me in that bar in Cambridge, playing card tricks on you. This was one such bluff. I wouldn't go down there to the kitchen for anything in the world right now. It was spooky enough during daylight." Peter shuddered. "Let alone at almost midnight."

"Wanna order in?" she suggested warmly, already half-defrosted from the previous anger. "I know you have a thing for pizzas."

"Sure. I pity the poor delivery boy. He's probably gonna piss his pants when he arrives at the address." Peter snickered.

"What will you be having?" she interrupted him warmly.

Peter opted for the so called Canadian pizza. It typically included tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, bacon, pepperoni and mushrooms. It was an internationally known recipe but he wanted to see how Canadian pizza was made in Canada.

The delivery boy who was a walking stereotype, his face riddled with acne was showing traces of fear when Olivia opened the door. He took his money as fast as he could and practically ran toward his bike.

"I don't know whether it's the whole mass murder ambience or the lack of electricity but I can assure you one thing. This poor fellow will sleep with the bedside lamp lit on tonight" Peter smiled as he dug in hungrily.

The taste was different, certainly not like anything he had ever eaten before in Boston Mass. He was glad he asked for that dish in particular.

Olivia ate in silence too. The creases on her forehead hadn't abated since…

Well, if Peter was going to be honest with himself, since their plane ride. She seemed to have a lot on her mind and she wasn't sharing. He decided to pry a bit.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Peter grinned, pulling out a coin from his pocket.

He placed it in front of her eyes, to make sure he got her full attention. Then he made a swift finger movement.

"It's gone!" she exclaimed like a joyful little girl, grabbing both of his palms and inspecting them carefully. "How did you do that?"

"What can I say, Dunham, I am multitalented. Card tricks are not the only thing I know."

"Where is it?" she seemed eager to learn, and, he noticed with a smile, finally carefree.

"It's right here" Peter swallowed and tenderly removed her golden strands from her face. Olivia shyly cast her eyes downwards at that movement.

"So… It was behind my ear? How is the trick done?"

"The question is not how… But when?" Peter smiled. "Nah, I won't tell you, Dunham. You can bug me all you like. If you really wanna know, Google it. Play it on You Tube. A good magician never divulges his tricks."

"Got any more?" he could see she was obviously challenging him.

"I've got one I could bloody well use right now. Even though we had nice dinner, I am still having trouble falling asleep. I swear I am turning into Walter." Peter sighed.

"So what **do** you do when you can't fall asleep?" Olivia leaned towards him, interested.

"Among other things…This" he used his thumb to push the coin upwards and guided it to lay on the middle of his index finger, behind his medial knuckle.

He then started rolling it between his finger in a soothing, ever repeating soothing circle.

Olivia watched, mesmerised.

"It calms me down" he whispered.

"Can you teach me?" she whispered back.

"Sure thing, boss" Peter grinned, taking her palm into his. "Hey, I never noticed you had such small hands. I guess you always seem big and powerful to me, what with your Glock at the ready and your menacing voice and attitude. Like someone who can overcome everything, you know" he added a positive comment wanting to avoid her negative reaction.

"It only looks like that on the outside, I suppose" she sighed. "And there are some problems not even I can solve."

"I refuse to believe that" he chuckled mirthfully. "That's a notorious lie, Dunham."

"Sometimes it's not about me, even." She buried her head between her hands.

"Is it the victims? Hey. Olivia. We are making some kind of the progress. And still, we've been here for two days only, you can't expect a miracle."

"It's about Rachel."

The dots connected in his head.

"She having some trouble? Is everything ok with Ella?"

He sounded genuinely worried and Olivia found herself outpouring the entire situation before she even realised it.

"It's her husband, Greg. He's filing for divorce."

"You know, I never liked that guy."

"You never met Greg."

"Yeah, but I met your sister and I know she deserves better. That dude is a jerk. Sooner or later, he'll realise what he'd lost. A wonderful wife and daughter."

"And here I thought you were a card carrying cynic"

"That may be true, but you know what they say: under every cynic there is a hopeless romantic ready to pounce." His face was now almost impossibly close to hers and she jumped away as if scalded by hot water.

Olivia cleared her throat several times.

"No one seems to be appearing yet so maybe we should get some sleep." She coughed pointedly and he took it as a sign it was time for him to crawl over to his sleeping space.

"Sure thing." He replied a bit dejectedly.

Seconds passed as they were lying there in silence and then he heard her soft voice break the noiselessness.

"Good night, Peter." She sounded sweet, grateful and guarded at the same time, if something like that was at all possible.

"Good night." He whispered back, barely audibly. His left hand had already started his coin mantra.

Peter knew long hours of insomnia were lying ahead.


	10. Mirror Mirror

**THE FIRST RAY** of the morning sun splashed across Peter's face. Even though it was lukewarm, for him it felt like an ice cold bucket of water wake-up-call.

He wasn't aware when he had been able to finally shut his eyes.

The faithful coin that must have fallen out of his limp hand now lay abandoned on the floor.

Peter quickly pocketed it with a sigh.

Every bone in his body hurt as if it were broken.

 _On the upside, I didn't have to lay next to Walt and listen to him talk in his sleep._

 _On the downside… This sleeping bag is incredibly uncomfortable, especially because it's been laid on bare wooden planks._

 _I better check up on Olivia._

His boss was completely wrapped up in her sleeping bag. Only the tip of her nose and a part of the freckled cheek were peeking out.

Olivia's eyes were firmly shut and her hair was twinkling, intertwined with the sun rays.

Peter thought she looked so peaceful, tucked away in her dreamland, far from the horrors of reality that would prey on her in a short while.

 _Nothing eventful seemed to have happened throughout the entire night._

 _So, why bother Olivia immediately?_

Peter stretched his legs and quietly walked over to the window.

 _Well, at least there won't be any rain today._

He thought he had seen something or someone move in the backyard and he frowned, checking up on his gun.

Then he slowly descended the stairs. He tossed the pizza in the garbage can and headed towards a garden, determined to check who the intruder was.

A joyful quiet yelp interrupted him and seconds later, Ajax brought him down on the grass, licking him all over his face.

Peter's first instinct was to jump away from the dog, remembering his strong allergy reaction. Yet even though Ajax's tongue was on his mouth right now, as the dog was trying and for the most part succeeding to give him an especially unpleasant wet kiss, nothing was happening.

"So, Walter has managed to make you non-allergenic? Good for me, huh, boy? What are you even doing here? Did you run away from the lab and come straight home?"

Peter wondered why the dog had been so obsessed with him during the last three days they spent in Mission.

"Am I using the same aftershave or cologne as your chopped-up owner? What's your deal with me?" he smiled absently, patting puppy's head.

Ajax then went on to rummage around his dog house, within the "do not cross" yellow line, sniffing his empty food bowl.

"You must be hungry, buddy. Your owners fed you yesterday, but I guess…This morning there is no one left to feed you." The fact made Peter feel sad. The dog was, in a way, also a victim of the crime.

"Well, don't you worry. Knowing Walter, he probably gave you some pie in the lab". Peter shook his head in disapproval. "But we can still hope that the crazy knife lady left some dog pellets at the crime scene."

Peter knew Olivia wouldn't have liked him to rifle through the kitchen where the murder had occurred. He could literally hear her rebuking voice in his head. It was saying: "Peter, don't! The evidence…!"

"I'll just step in and step out quickly… Well what do you know. Good old Constable Murray was right. The dog is indeed eating Orijen pellet brand."

After the pooch had enthusiastically wolfed down the entire bowl, younger Bishop decided to pay a visit to the upper floor.

"Let's go and surprise the boss, Ajax! It's high time she woke up anyway. Even though there is no lead in the house whatsoever apart from this weird and obscure Observer appearance, I still have a strong hunch Olivia would have liked to move on with the case."

Ajax skipped steps, climbing in a hurry, his nails digging into the wooden stairs with zealousness. 

He jumped on top of Olivia's sleeping bag and started licking her face with eager enjoyment.

She immediately set up, befuddled, trying yet failing to keep her distance from the pooch.

"Oh my God! What is he…How did he get here?"

"I supposed he walked." Peter smirked. "Ajax probably misses his home. But, don't you worry, he had breakfast and all. I was the most generous host." He bowed mimicking Murray's behaviour. "And, oh, hey. Guess what? He does eat Orijen brand."

"Ugh. Don't remind me of what I saw Murray do" Olivia was making her best effort not to smile. "So, I take it nothing happened overnight?" she sounded disappointed.

"No, but" Peter's eyes were now chained to the wall right behind Olivia. "Something really interesting is about to happen so I don't think you missed anything, actually."

Ajax's hair was on the back of his neck and the dog was now quietly growling.

The wall was shimmering and becoming almost transparent. Seconds later, a man came out of it.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Peter muttered clutching his weapon.

"I think we are witnessing a live Fringe event. Again." she whispered with a hint of sarcasm and Peter smiled.

When the man came out, Peter snorted.

"An Observer. I swear, these guys have now started popping out every eight hours. It's like clockwork. Such punctuality."

"This place must be of some interest to them. Peter, I think whatever it was that was going on in this house… It was vital for the case. I am certain of it. Let's try and talk to him before he leaves."

Ajax had long calmed down. He was now simply 'observing the Observer', Peter thought inwardly, resting next to their feet.

 _I guess that means the fellow is not an immediate threat._

 _All the Observers we have encountered so far… Well…The two of them, really. Didn't harm us._

 _Scratch that. September shot me with his thingamajig._

 _But, according to Walter, that was to…Protect me. Yeah, right._

He then heard Olivia and the Observer speak at the same time. Their voices echoed eerily in the now empty bedroom.

"Please don't go. We need to ask you something."

He enjoyed seeing Olivia's astonished face for the moment. That was exactly how he felt way back when he saw September perform the same trick in the forest.

 _I don't know if I quite reached her back there at the hospital and whether she believed my story._

 _Now she has no choice, really._

 _Seeing is believing, Dunham._

"How are you doing that?" Olivia whispered back at the same time as the Observer.

"It's handy, isn't it?" Peter joined the conversation. "Mind-reading."

The Observer tilted his head towards him next. "Not quite" he said, his eyes warm. It almost looked like as if he were going to smile.

"I have seen the entire timeline. The present, the future and the past. Therefore, I knew Agent Olivia Dunham will pronounce that sentence in this precise moment." His metallic voice reverberated around them.

"So, we have already had this conversation before?" Peter inquired, amused.

"I have seen it etched on the timeline, yes, if this is what you are asking" the man nodded solemnly.

 _Man, this dude is from the future, past and present. How's that for cool?_

 _Perhaps I could ask him who will win the elections and get a lot of money off betting._

 _Or… No, no….I've got a better one! Ask him how many children Olivia and I will have?_ Peter smiled to himself morosely.

"One" came the single word from the Observer, as he stared Peter down, his head inclined to the left.

 _Did he just answer my…Children question…What?_

"Yes." The Observer said again.

"What is he talking about, Peter?" Olivia's eyes darted from Observer to Peter and vice versa.

"Umm… Nothing, agent Dunham" Peter coughed trying his damnedest to look inconspicuous. "Changing the topic, you are the second Observer we are seeing on this location. If you are not in a hurry like your buddy who came here before you, would you be so kind as to explaining to us…What the heck is going on here?"

"There was one here before me?" Olivia thought she could sense a hint of fear in the Observer's voice.

"Yes, but you probably already know that" she replied.

"No. Some sections of the timeline are hidden from us if the referents are other…Observers, as you call us."

"So" Olivia was processing that information. "You know what will happen among humans and you can even affect and alter it but you… Can't see each other in the timeline, you can't affect each other. Why?"

"There are two reasons for that, Olivia Dunham. The first reason is because we are equal. The second reason is because it is prohibited to do so."

"Prohibited by whom?" she was sick and tired of riddles.

"I cannot tell you that. I can only tell you to beware of the man who came here before me."

"Who is he? Who are you, for that matter?"

"My name is June."

"Wait, what?" Peter coughed in an attempt to hide his laughter. "Seriously? Isn't that a girl's name?"

"June as in… Month of June?" Olivia inquired slowly as the pieces of the puzzle clicked in their places.

"Yes."

"So you are three months older than September?" Peter was trying to joke around the fact. "So how many of you are there, twelve? And the one we saw last night is…Lemme guess…That's evil January who needs to be stopped. And you guys are some kind of knights of the round table?"

"That man is not January" Observer replied calmly.

"That's the only thing you deny from my whole invented tirade? So…Then it's all true. You are called like that for real? Wait. Why would you choose names of months as a referent? That's a human metrical system we use for time. Don't you have your own? Unless…"

"Unless they are humans" Olivia finished barely audibly, feeling the air getting stuck in her throat.

"We are you, yes, from a distant future."

"How…distant?" Both Peter and Olivia sat down on their sleeping bags staring at him. Ajax whimpered slightly but sat obediently next to them, gazing intently at the Observer.

"We were created in 2167. But the twelve of us were sent to the past in 2609. By the year 2609, the Observers had ruined the planet. To rectify this, a plan was put into place that involved going back in time and taking the planet from modern-day humans. The Observers in the year 2609 sent a team of 12 scientists, code-named after each month, to study their beginnings and observe primitive humanity. "

"And you are… One of the 12. That's… Impossible. That's 157 years from now. And not to mention the other date you just… Talked about" Olivia gasped.

The man with fedora went on, oblivious to her amazement.

"Scientists in Oslo, Norway, were experimenting with the human brain in that year. They discovered that they could remove areas of the brain that stimulated aggression and other negative emotions and replace them with rational thought."

"Peter…" Olivia whispered, overflown with dread. "Is that…Possible?"

"Technically, it would be, as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps Walt might be more of an expert on the matter but if your technology were to be advanced enough… I don't see why not".

"So you are… Humans?" she let out a tiny little gasp.

"Yes. And no. We are evolved humans from one possible future of mankind. We were grown in tanks using the DNA of designated donors, causing no need for females. Progenies were grown at accelerated rates."

"Oh yeah" Peter slapped his forehead. "I always wondered why there was a parade of bald men around and where the ladies were. Well, I guess I got my answer. What is all that tech you drag around, if I may ask? Such as those vintage binoculars, for instance?" younger Bishop was now genuinely interested from the scientific point of view.

"They are extremely high tech. In an attempt to study our evolution, we utilised our time period's technology which allowed us to travel through time and space. Because of this technology, we exist quite literally "outside" of time".

"I suppose that's handy. You mentioned evolution?" Peter's eyebrows creased. "Brain was further experimented on, I take it?"

"You are correct. Over time, however, over time, areas of good emotions, like love, empathy and similar, were removed in favour of higher intelligence."

"Oh. That's why you look like walking dead and you tilt your head every now and then. Now I get it. But still…" Peter pressed on, even though Olivia gave him a sign she was just about ready to start making inquiries about the case at hand. "How are you so evolved? Is it possible that the human brain will improve all that much in such a short time?"

"Observer abilities are mostly due to futuristic technology. An implant in the back of the head aids our abilities. An implant can be given to anyone by making an incision. The implant then makes its way into the body, allowing that person to exhibit Observer-like abilities, which include enhanced vision, teleportation, and calculative precognition. The technology begins to form new ridges in the brain to enhance rational thinking, referred to as "controlled evolution", consequently destroying emotion centres and with it a person's sense of humanity. This loss of feeling relates to both emotion as well as senses like taste. After an unspecified amount of time, the changes to the brain become permanent."

"That sounds fascinating. I wish I were able to see one of the implants up close." Peter was awe-struck.

"You will" the Observer merely replied cryptically.

"Hey, hey, hey" Peter was now completely erect, as he jumped up, grabbing the Observer by the lapels of his suit. "What the hell does that mean? Tell me what it means! I need to know! Now!"

Ajax became extremely agitated as well as he let out low growl, but Olivia pulled Peter back. Seeing Peter shift so rapidly from a relatively calm, snarky demeanour into a violent, impulsive bundle of nerves made her feel extremely uncomfortable.

That was a side of him she could not predict or restrain and thus that was a side of him she feared.

"Peter. Get back here. Now."

The icy coldness in her voice was enough for him to release the man.

"We are not here to learn about the future. Our time and place is here and now. And we need to act, soon, or I am afraid there will be more victims on the case we are currently on. In case you forgot all about it."

"But…Olivia. Don't you get it? Precisely by getting to know the future we…We can always be two steps ahead of everything. Just… Imagine the possibilities. We could actually prevent Fringe cases instead of groping around blindly in the dark while helplessly trying to solve them and ending up being totally useless," he spoke with an honest fervour Olivia never saw him use till that moment.

For her, Peter Bishop was, just as she had called him before, a card carrying cynic, and she didn't imagine he cared so much about what they did.

Olivia always felt guilty, in a way, for forcing him to stay. She thought Peter was behaving so obnoxiously because he was secretly looking for her or Walter's reaction that would then give him a leeway, a way of escaping his current circumstances.

It hadn't occurred to her that somewhere, at some point in time, Peter actually started caring about this… Thing they did.

And now he wanted to do it more efficiently, even.

"I am sorry, Peter. In this particular case, I am the one who gets to make the call. I am your boss. And I am ordering you to stay put."

He promptly shut up, yet his eyes smouldered. Olivia knew he would do as she said but, inwardly, that ever-curious spirit of his will go on wondering.

"Even if he knew everything that will happen, he is probably forbidden to tell us. He already told us some things, in a way." Olivia added. "I just… Want to know who that man was. From before. Who came here last night. And what is going on with this place? It's this place, isn't it? The one that it's causing people to become extremely violent and overall…Different?"

June slowly nodded.

"How? Can you please… Are you allowed to tell us?"

"I am not supposed to get involved" he said evenly. "Yet I know you are September's friends."

"That's stretching it quite a bit. We are more like distant acquaintances", dryness wasn't leaving Peter's voice.

Olivia was relieved Peter's sarcasm was back. It meant he had partially forgiven her for her previous "meddling".

"He spoke well of you and I shall give you the assistance you are looking for. Where would you like me to start?"

"Let us start with answers to 'who and what', then", she said coldly, with an interrogative tone of voice.

Peter couldn't suppress a chuckle.

 _Olivia Dunham. Always the logical ice queen regardless of whom he has in front of her. Questioning is questioning, hey. I guess she managed to shut down all the non essential functions and suffocate her fear and curiosity at the same time._

"I shall answer your queries."

Olivia took a deep breath.

"Who was that man, last night?"

"His name is Windmark. He is here to observe the consequences of the Device when used on normal humans."

"Wait, what?" Peter leaned forward, deeply intrigued by those words. "What device? I knew there was a device!"

"You would call this device a M-i-r-r-o-r" June spelled it out slowly for them as if they were some kind of retarded children. "Yet it is a masque and a facade. It is not a mirror at all. It is a portal to another world. It is a pocket universe, if you will, and it is created anew every time a person looks at it in nude. It is showing the truth of each human who places him or herself in front of it."

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa" Peter raised his finger in the air incredulously. "Hang on. Just.. Hang on a sec. You are saying that somewhere in this quaint little town, there is a mirror that makes an evil clone of every person who looks at it naked? That's too much even for me."

"Yet it is, so, Peter." June replied calmly and serenely. "This advanced technology Observer artefact scans the human brain, posteriorly targeting its most primitive part. Then it sucks the original in and within the confines of the pocket verse, it creates a copy of a person that is lead by pure instinct, animal part of the brain. It removes any sort of restriction or moral/social inhibition, underlining every violent thought a human being has ever had until their whole body and mind are completely rewritten and they are turned into extreme versions of themselves."

"Id version, according to Freud" Peter nodded eagerly, immersed in the story.

"Is this why all the afflicted appear to have their internal organs reversed?" Olivia asked for the confirmation of what she now already knew, feeling dread rising within her as she swallowed couple of times, visibly uncomfortable.

"That is, correct, Olivia Dunham" June tilted his head towards her comically, and Olivia had a fleeting thought about how it made him look like a peculiar combination of a man, dog and the robot at the same time.

"Why would such a parallel universe personality transformation be of use to you?" Peter approached the topic from a more scientific side.

"In distant future, it was…it will be made to enlarge Observer army in a fast way. It is supposed to remove the basic needs and emotions yet for some inexplicable reason it is malfunctioning on humans."

"Sooo…Earth 2009 is literally a laboratory for Observers from 27th century who come and go here as they are pleased, using lesser humans as their guinea pig experiments?" Peter's tone of voice was jovial, but his fists were clenched in fury. "Good to know. Thanks for the heads up, mate."

Olivia thought June looked a little sad, even, upon hearing Peter pronounce those words. His eyes most definitely widened and there was moisture in their angles. She pondered whether the year June came from, 2167, actually made him a bit more human in comparison to the Observers who were originally from the 27th century.

"The Twelve do not approve of this, Peter." June said. "That is why we have congregated and decided to get involved in the matter. The MIRROR is dangerous and it has destructive and lethal consequences. Violence and aggression becomes more accentuated in humans after standing in front of this object. Therefore, we do not wish for it to remain in the human world of 21st century, causing further harm."

"That's nice of you. So what do you want to do with it?" Peter didn't quite believe June's altruistic tendency.

"We would have it destroyed."

"Sounds like a nice plan. So why haven't you done it already?" younger Bishop teased him.

"We can not be seen getting directly involved. We need the device to be found by a willing human and then consequently brought to us. We would require your assistance."

"You would, wouldn't you? How nice." Peter started to say something else but the man was no longer there.

Ajax let out a small squeal and started sniffing around the room.

"So he literally disappeared into thin air. How's that for bald David Copperfield! You know, he kinda reminds me of Broyles. He came, gave us a task and then just…Left"

"Peter" Olivia interrupted him. "We don't have time for this. The mirror is now gone from the house. There could be someone new struck with this…Affliction…" she fought to use the words that were familiar to her in order to neutralise the absurdity of this novel information.

"Three guesses who" Peter muttered darkly, pulling his hands out of his pockets.

 **TRIMPLE** awoke unusually confident that morning. His stomach fat jiggled a bit when he jumped out of bed and his lips twisted in a malevolent grin at that occurrence.

He patted it with a self-content smile and then he strutted around his makeshift flat with a distinctive sense of pride.

His gaze lay resting at the reflective surface of the huge antique mirror.

"Not bad, old boy. Not bad at all, your eminence. Looking good today."

He sat at the empty dusty table and dug into a bowl of cereals, disregarding the fact that the milk was already past its due date. It had long turned sour.

Nothing could dampen his mood on that day.

Bert Trimple was a man changed. He was full of positive thoughts, optimism and enthusiasm. Nothing could go wrong and everything was possible.

A visit to the bank now seemed like a piece of cake. Trimple knew he was going to get exactly what he wanted.

"Well" he said cheerfully after having completed his morning nutrient intake, "time for you to get dressed, old boy."

He opened his wardrobe wide and his glance fell on the best suit he had owned. Truth be told, it did have some patches around the sleeves but all things considered, Bert Trimple knew he looked good in it.

"Why not?" he said out loud, his voice gingerly reverberating in an empty room. "After all, I do need to leave an impression."

When everything was ready and he was eventually pleased with how he looked, Trimple headed for the door.

"Oh, I almost forgot about you, little fella", he said lovingly, moving towards the corner and picking up a huge rusty sword covered in a thick layer of dust. "How do you feel about going on an adventure? Is that a 'yes' I am hearing? I knew you would be thrilled with the prospect."


	11. Are You Going To The Bank, Frank?

**CONSTABLE** Murray firmly pressed the doorbell several times, impatient. It was eight o' clock in the morning now and at the door of "TRIMPLE'S ANTIQUE'S", clearly said, in some kind of attempt medieval/hieroglyphical handwriting, as he called it in his mind: "OPEN".

Grey-haired head, now greasy in the pallid sunlight, appeared on the window on the first floor of that shabby building.

It was the same man from yesterday.

"The moments of dejavú are coming more frequently, now. Moments that stutter and hiccup and falter and repeat. Sometimes whole mornings repeat. Once, I lost a day. Time seems to be breaking down entirely." Murray muttered.

"Sorry, young man?" the senior citizen from the last night, whom Murray recalled quite well, inquired, obviously confused.

"Ah, it is nothing. I take it you haven't read anything by Neil Gaiman?" Constable added, not meaning to sound disrespectful.

"No, no gay man here, no siree! You will find that this is an honest and poor neighbourhood." The old man went red in face.

"I meant" … Murray sighed, realising he was fighting a losing battle.

"I'm trifle deaf on one ear, could you repeat that, young man?" the grandpa, as Murray was now calling him inwardly, shouted as much as he could which caused couple of more windows to open.

"Never mind" the policeman gave up. "I am looking for Mr. Bert Trimple" he stuttered, uncomfortable, aware that the whole alley was now peeping at him behind thick, smudgy glass windows with a noticeable frown. "You told me he would be here tomorrow. That's today."

"You are out of luck once again, young man."

"He is not in, I take it? I should have realised that these fresh tyre tracks leading out of the street were from his truck" Murray knelt in the mud almost gluing his eyes to the ground, staining the tip of his nose in the process. "If one thing can be concluded about Mr. Trimple, whom I've never seen in my life, is that he works non-stop."

"Oh, he ain't be working, no siree! He went to the bank, early this morning. I saw him, I did. He was wearing such a nice suit and all. Poor man. Asking them to postpone his mortgage instalment payment for the tenth time. I can only imagine what they will tell him. The same like the last nine times. No wonder he didn't look like himself."

The man continued his tirade, without noticing Murray's stained nose, muddy knees and perplexed facial expression. The wheels in Constable's brain were now whirring like crazy.

"He didn't… Look like himself, you say?"

"Poor Trimple, I've never seen him in a worse state of mind. He was even carrying a sword around, doubtlessly pretending to be a nobleman from Middle Ages or what not. He's off his rocker, yes he is, mark my words, yes siree! He was in such a bad state that he didn't even say hello to me, and he usually stands below my window and chatters away with me during the morning before he goes on a ride."

"A sword…Holy moly! Do you happen to know which bank did he go to?" Murray inquired, wide eyed.

"Why yes, it's the one we all got our savings in. TD Canada Trust, on London Ave! Now why would you…"

Murray was already rushing away and just as he was about to turn the corner, he realised he forgot his manners and he turned around in order to raise his Stetson hat as a sign of goodbye; that was when he clashed with a blonde female and they both fell into the mud.

"I apologise, Madam, I was in a rush and I…I am terribly sorry" he muttered, trying his best to help her on her feet.

"Save it, Romeo" a mocking voice addressed him and he glanced around, bewildered.

"Mr. Bishop? Then this must be…Agent Dunham?" he stared at Olivia wide eyed. She no longer needed his help as far as getting up was concerned. She was already on her feet, and she waved her hand dismissively.

"What are you both doing here?" Murray inquired. "Can it be that this is a fatidic encounter? I am certain our clash was not a coincidence at all. And Ajax!" he hugged the ecstatic border collie, proceeding to stuff his nose into the dog's mouth. "You smell like Orijen pellets! Someone had a nice breakfast, I see! Who's a good puppy?"

Peter interrupted his tirade.

"Oh, we are all most certainly constantly fucked by a fickle finger of fate. But maybe not just today. We were in a rush as well and look what happens when people hurry to their respective destinations. What a surprise: they, apparently, clash." Peter was now leaning on the nearby wall trying to stifle his laughter at Olivia's muddy appearance.

A glare from her direction was enough for him to change the tune, which he promptly did.

"We came into a possession of a forbidden knowledge", Peter began, with the best possible imitation of the mystical voice. "In 'Trimple's Antiques Shop', there is currently an object of an immense power. How's that for Fringe division? So naturally, we came here to retrieve it before it transformed him."

"A forbidden knowledge!" Murray gasped and Peter congratulated himself for being capable of transferring the Constable into the higher plane of existence. It was his private joke after all.

Peter Bishop felt impotent regarding most of the Fringe events that surrounded them. His sarcasm was at least an attempt to control his immediate vicinity.

"We are already late" Olivia interrupted his joke, assessing the situation fast. "We must be, judging by Murray's behaviour. Tell us what happened, quickly!"

"I came here last night to look for Trimple yet I wasn't able to find him. The same thing happened this morning." Murray admitted sheepishly. "His neighbour has just informed me that Trimple has gone to the bank. According to him, he didn't look like himself at all and he was… He was holding a sword!"

Olivia gasped and Peter's eyes looked more alert all of a sudden.

"Murray and I will go to the bank" she intercepted Peter's protesting glare. "We are trained officers after all, Peter and that is my final word. Please try to locate the mirror in his house and take it to the lab. Maybe Walter can make something out of it before our friend…"

"Roger that, boss" Peter winked, showing her he understood her Observer reference perfectly.

"One more thing, Peter." Olivia slapped her head in realisation. "How are you going to…" she stopped mid-sentence seeing how Peter had already pulled a lockpick out of his pocket.

"Get in." Olivia finished her sentence and exhaled, allowing herself a little smile in a reaction to his mischievous wink.

"Peter".

He lingered in a doorway, his back turned. When he half leaned towards her, his face was unreadable.

"Peter, be careful".

He nodded, once, seriously, and then disappeared into the darkness of the small shop.

Those three words and the caring tone she said them with made him feel all warm and giddy inside.

It was time for him now to do what he did best. Thieve.

 **BERT TRIMPLE** felt powerful. In control of things. How he never felt during a long, long time.

Sitting high up in his truck on a designated driver's seat, he felt as if he were on the top of the world, actually.

His faithful companion, antique sword, was lying next to him and Trimple would occasionally caress it with his loving gaze.

"Just a little bit longer" he whispered to it conspiratorially. "And the final reckoning will begin."

He parked the truck under the shade of the almond tree, just a block away from the bank.

Where he always did.

Trimple could clearly see that young cocky security guard standing there. Where he always stood.

He was talking to the newspaper seller at the kiosk.

Which we always did.

Everything was seemingly as it always was.

But no one knew, Trimple thought, that even though the scenery was exactly the same, the roles are about to change.

What is more, he was no longer an actor. He was fully and completely in control of his fate.

One could say he was about to redirect this live play and add an unimaginable plot twist.

Trimple could unequivocally hear the young security guard and the newsstand vendor whisper.

"There's old Trimple yet again." The guard snorted deridingly. "Looking rather dashing, I must say."

"Poor sod. He's probably come to ask for a delay in instalment charge again. I bet the bank will say no. I feel sorry for him."

"Hey, what is he holding in his hand? Is that a sword?" the dialogue went on. "It's probably one of his old playthings he keeps in that dusty decrepit shop of his."

"Hello, Arthur!" the policeman greeted him with mocking words. "Where on Earth did you get that thing? Don't tell me you pulled it out of the stone. English throne has been taken for quite a while now."

Trimple was calm. He was just standing there and letting them say their lines. They were, after all, excellent actors. He let them have their moment of shine on stage.

"He will probably try and offer it to the bank manager instead of money" the stand vendor rationalised. "Although, Bert" he cast a sympathetic glance towards Trimple. "Even though it might be a good thing to try, it looks really rusty. You could have at least cleaned it up a bit."

Trimple smiled widely.

"What a splendid idea. As a matter of fact, I was just going to wash it. With blood!" he shouted the last sentence, as some kind of battle cry, bracing himself.

He swung the sword to the left and the newspaper stand vendor's head rolled on the pavement, spurting rivulets of blood, as his confused body made a step forward and then stilled next to it as well.

Trimple was proud of how he performed. It was a nice, clean cut and he was certain the man didn't suffer much. The mercy was to be given to those who deserved it, he thought.

"In the name of…" the guard reached for his gun. "What are you doing, man!"

"Don't you recognise me? I am…the…angel…of…destruction!" Trimple exclaimed, cutting straight through the guard before he could get his weapon. The swing of the sword vertically ripped the man's head in half, starting at the forehead and then coming down his nose all the way to his neck.

The onlookers screamed in unison, grabbing their mobile phones, panicked.

Trimple ignored everyone as he entered the bank, heading straight towards the one of the bank employees.

The man had just completed some kind of a business deal, seemingly, as he was about to shake his hands with the customer.

"I told you that everything will be alright" the man was saying. "Just lean on me and on our institution and don't you worry about a thing."

"Thank you, sir! Thank you so much!" the man seemed to be ecstatic and at that precise moment, Trimple pitied him.

"You are very welcome, sir." The bank employee cooed back, reassuringly. "After all, it is our duty to assist our clients and always offer them the most adequate advice at the most appropriate of times."

I am doing this man a favour, Trimple thought, swinging his sword just as they were going to shake hands and making a precise, surgical cut.

The bank employee's hand rolled away and the blood started gushing from an open wound.

"No deal! Ha-ha!" Trimple cried out triumphantly as he proceeded towards the well-known bank manager's office.

In a smaller foyer, there was another security guard and a young woman of pleasant facial features whom Trimple recognised as bank manager's secretary.

She never gave him a second glance. At the time, Trimple was resigned with his fate and he would accept her treatment. It was not so any longer.

"What's happening out there? We heard someone screaming" the guard inquired hastily and then his face went pale when he saw the bloodied sword in Trimple's hands.

"Hey, you! Drop that weapon and put your hands behind your back! You can't come in here!"

"Oh, can't I? What a pity!" Trimple sounded genuinely sad. "But you do sound awfully agitated, I swear. There's no reason to lose your head over it, is there now?"

His sword went easily through the guard's neck as the sharp knife through the soft butter.

"I think I am getting the hang of this, don't you, Miss?" he turned towards her proudly.

The guard's head had rotated and spun onto her desk as it spluttered her keyboard and her face with tiny blood droplets.

Trimple could see she didn't like it one bit. She just stood there, catatonic, in that state between disbelief and the release of a high-pitched scream that was sure about to follow.

"Really, Marjorie? You don't like this one either? I thought it rolled out so nicely. How many presents do I have to get you before you accept my invitation to go out for drinks? The struggles of a modern man, honestly!" he tsk-ed disapprovingly.

The girl stood up and ran towards the manager's office, screaming.

Trimple followed her in a leisurely stroll, whistling one of his favourite songs. He knew she would not escape.

His whistle soon turned into a full-fledged karaoke performance.

Trimple felt good about himself. He climbed on top of Marjorie's desk, now ready for a voice exhibition in a musical of his own making.

There was tears, yes, and there was blood, but in the end those were things that life fabric was made of.

"The sun'll come out

Tomorrow

Bet your bottom dollar

That tomorrow

There'll be sun

Just thinkin' about

Tomorrow

Clears away the cobwebs,

And the sorrow

'Til there's none

When I'm stuck a with day

That's gray,

And lonely,

I just stick out my chin

And grin,

And say,

Oh…"

He jumped down, interrupting his amazing performance when he heard the commotion coming from the hallway.

Trimple knew that, all movies and theatre plays, as well as the emotions they bring along with them on a journey, must end.

And his was now coming closer and closer, vertiginously close to the final sequence. There wasn't much time, after all.

And there was still a dragon to slay.

Even if he didn't know where the office was, and he did, of course Trimple did, because he sat there sweating more times than he could count, there was still Marjorie's voice to follow.

She sounded so graceful, even as she was letting out the most terrible cries.

"Director! Director! Trimple! That maniac! He will kill us all!" she barely managed to step through the door and into the room that contained a bewildered, bespectacled man in an elegant black suit as the sword pierced her back and came up through her stomach.

"You are absolutely right, Marjorie. I will kill you all." Trimple's voice came down to a halt. "Sorry about that, darling. It was not the best way to call it quits but you and I were never meant to be." He leaned downwards and kissed her forehead in reverence, saying goodbye to his heroine.

"But, what…" the bank manager muttered, confused, as beads of sweat adorned his forehead. He shrunk in his chair, now trembling with dread.

Trimple thought how small, how insignificant this man looked to him right now. He almost couldn't believe he was once afraid of him, or that he hung on his every word, waiting for his approval.

He was just another bug Trimple was free to squash.

"Trimple! Are you out of your mind? What do you think you're doing in here?" the manager tried his authoritative tone of voice that used to work so well on this chubby furniture dealer.

"Oh, don't you know? I am here to beg you to postpone my mortgage instalment payment. However, the tables have turned. Now you are the one who will have to beg me. Beg me for your life."

 **OLIVIA** ran into the bank, breathless, closely followed by Murray. She had no doubts about the fact that Trimple had already arrived at his destination.

She smiled inappropriately hearing Peter's voice say "follow the trail of bodies" in her head.

They were late for all those people, but she wanted to make sure they save the victims that were to follow.

"FBI! Coming through!" she shouted, trying to make herself clear in the tumultuous crowd that was about to go on a rebellious stamped in a desperate fervour to reach the door.

Murray's visually very visible stetson hat was helping since wherever people would see it, they would make way for him, so she had no other option but to follow the Constable, grunting at displeasure at the slow pace he was advancing to.

"Sorry, Royal Canadian Mounted Police coming through. Thank you, Madam. I apologise for disturbing you but we absolutely must pass onwards toward the perpetrator. Thank you for your understanding. Have a great day now."

 _Must he bow and remove his hat in front of every civilian we encounter?_ Olivia was fuming.

They finally reached the foyer and she firmly closed her eyes for the moment at the sight of the decapitated man on the floor.

His head was resting on the keyboard of the computer, eerily staring towards the numbers on the screen, as if he was trying to make sense out of them even in this post mortem state.

Murray's facial expression was grave but he didn't say much.

"That way" the Constable pointed towards the source of noise.

When the two of them finally entered the bank manager's office, the man was on his knees in front of his richly ornamented desk.

He was crying like a child, both of his hands joined in a prayer.

"No…Please…I beg of you…No… Spare my life" were the words coming out of his mouth at the moment when Olivia raised her gun and shouted. "Stop!"

"Ah, you are here as well. Good. The final act is about to commence" Trimple simply said.

"Can you hear me? Drop your weapon and put your hands behind your head?" Olivia shouted yet again, more reassurredly.

"I am very sorry to inform you about this, director, but the board has sadly decided to outright deny your plea!" Trimple cried out, lowering his sword.

Olivia fired a shot at that precise moment but she was too late. Just as her bullet pierced Trimple's back, his sword had simultaneously descended down the man's throat.

There was blood all over the office and she gagged, gasping for air. Olivia was nauseous but glad that the massacre was over.

 _If Peter had managed to get the mirror and take it to the lab, with any luck, no one else will be hurt._

She approached the dying figure of Bert Trimple. He was no longer armed and Olivia could clearly see he was drawing his last breaths.

The antique shop vendor's gaze was intense when he grabbed her arm with his left hand. He forced her to look at him.

Olivia swallowed, thinking how Bert Trimple, as well, was just another victim of that dreadful experiment.

The long moment during which they stared at each other was interrupted by blood that suddenly started coming out of his mouth.

He smiled, as if he were at peace.

He leaned towards Olivia and whispered:

"The sun'll come out

Tomorrow

So ya gotta hang on

'Til tomorrow

Come what may

Tomorrow, tomorrow

I love ya tomorrow

You're always

A day

Away".

A single tear went down Olivia's cheek as Bert Trimple died, although her face remained unmuted and composed.

There was work to be done. Case to be closed. She couldn't allow herself to linger on this sorrow, on this complex realisation. Somewhere out there, there was a new case waiting for the Fringe Division. And by staying here longer than necessary, she was perhaps unconsciously aiding the unsubs.

Agent Dunham cleared her throat and went to stand next to Murray.

"So many lives fading into nothingness in mere instants." he muttered, staring through the window. "The pointlessness of our existence passing on to the pointlessness of our disappearance, yet again. And another day goes by."

She opened her mouth to tell him something, anything but found herself at loss for words.

The doors behind them opened abruptly and Broyles and Peter burst into the room simultaneously, followed by at least ten armed officers, as far as she could see.

Her brain was a blur so it wasn't that easy to count those hazy, distant figures that all become one grey blot in front of Olivia's eyes.

"Olivia!" concern was mirrored in his voice as he reached her in two quick strides over the room. Everything came into focus, sharpened by his intense green gaze.

"Are you okay?" he asked, half trying to pull her into his embrace but halting when he saw the haunting expressing Olivia wore on her face.

Peter knew then that a grip on both of her arms was to be enough, as he carefully turned her towards him and held her steadily in his close proximity for several moments, inspecting her face for signs of discomfort.

She just nodded and it was enough for him to let out a sigh of relief.

Their non-verbal communication was admittedly getting better and better, Peter thought inwardly with a smile.

"Just another day under the sun, huh?", he muttered, summing up the experience.

"Yeah." She replied curtly, and even managed a small phoney smile.

Peter somehow always knew what to say. She was sure he called for Broyles and for back up as soon as Murray and she left in hurry.

Broyles was less emotional as he simply came to her and inquired.

"How many victims?"

"Five" she stared back at him, spitting out the cold fact. "One wounded. Paramedics are with him as we speak."

"This is the unsub, then?" Broyles motioned towards Bert Trimple.

"Yes. Though I could have stopped that last murder" she motioned robotically towards the bank manager who still had the sword unpleasantly stuck down his throat. "I wasn't fast enough."

Broyles gagged staring at the horrible scene. "I should take something against sickness. I have a feeling I am about to vomit."

"And I should take an antidepressant. If we had arrived just a bit earlier to Trimple's house…" Olivia sighed.

Peter knew she felt guilty but he wasn't about to convince her otherwise.

The coincidences and the lack of time were most frequent culprits in their area of work and it wasn't always something they could control.

Murray came over to them, grave expression on his face. "Agent Dunham did everything she could."

"I am sure she did" Broyles nodded. "Do we know the reason why?"

"The reason why and the key to this whole mystery is safely tucked inside Walter's makeshift lab. All I can say is…Get ready for another autopsy gone wrong with organs all over the place." Peter informed them. "You won't believe it when you see it. Or maybe you will, since you are the Head of the Fringe division after all. Walt is trying to crack it as we speak, pun intended. We should probably go and take care of that little detail and leave the clean-up crew to do their job". He gave a meaningful look to Olivia and she knew he was wondering how they are to contact the Observer next. "Also, I don't want to leave Ajax with Walt for too long. He will feed him cupcakes next, or human corpse leftovers if I am not careful. I can totally hear him say: 'Son, raw meat is good for dog's diet. It's good. And the bones will help his dental structure develop."


	12. Rewind

**WALTER** Bishop, his pants lowered to his ankles, drew a shabby old chair from the far corner of the makeshift lab and sat to face mirror.

Oddly enough, that non-allergenic dog also sat in front of the object, his head tilted and his ears perked up, emitting low growls.

He also rejected the cupcake Walter offered him and he was now nervously pacing in front of the mirror, hair standing on the back of his neck.

"My son's influence has rubbed off on you. It must have been Peter who told you not to accept food from me" Walter concluded morosely.

He understood the dog's fascination with the object, though.

Walter was also obsessed regarding the sole existence of the object, scientifically speaking, and even more so due to the fact the mirror looked so ordinary. It was big, sure enough, and it occupied more than half of a wall, but still: it was a mirror, and nothing else.

What he saw in the reflective surface, sadly, disheartened Walter Bishop till no end. He was a man changed, his physiognomy different.

No element was missing, but still, the whole was somehow wrong.

His once thick, dark curly hair that used to jut proudly and that he had trouble combing properly in the morning was now filled with grey lines. What is more, every morning after he would wake up, Walter would still find handfuls of hair on his pillow.

That occurrence wasn't unfamiliar to him. It used to happen a lot before, while he was in St. Claire's institution.

Even so, a little part of him died inwardly whenever he would find another unequivocal proof of his getting old.

Deep creases were long embedded onto his face, and his facial features seemed to constantly shift, giving him an unpredictable and mad look.

His intelligent and, some would say, cruel eyes, made way to reveal a childish, petulant gaze of a senile old man.

Their gleam could be invoked only by an incredible scientific discovery or an instant boost in the shape of a milkshake flavour he hadn't yet managed to try or Red Vines.

Even the way Walter held himself or walked had not been the same and being able to see himself completely in the mirror underlined that fact. His shoulders drooped forward in way that he resembled a hunchback, if he were to walk fast, but he could already sense the initial joviality creeping out of his body and abandoning him for ever slowly, albeit securely.

His little fellow soldier down there between his legs was still functioning but Walter would always joke inwardly that he didn't have much use for him.

If anything, it was straightforward embarrassing, what happened to him in the lab on daily, or sometimes on hourly basis.

He almost constantly had erections when he would see Agent Dunham or Asteroid. Walter was most certainly grateful that they dismissed his comments about them as ramblings.

Thought of erection lead to thought of Elizabeth. He wondered about her, staring deep into his own eyes. Walter was used to seeing her pupils in his own, since that was their little routine, their little proof to show that they still cared about each other.

They would stare at one another's eyes just until he could see her irises in his, and she, his irises in hers. The sudden realisation that she was dead and long gone hit him like a ten-ton truck and he had to gasp and rearrange his seating position, coming even closer to the mirror.

Walter knew Elizabeth was no more, there was no doubt about that, but he had spent so many years with her that it still came as a surprise to him every now and then.

After so much time during which their bodies and minds were like conjoined twins, he couldn't avoid but feel her as a part of him.

He was like a soldier who had lost an arm in war long, long time ago, but yet still felt familiar tingling where the arm was supposed to be.

Always faced with the same amalgam of anger, loss and sadness, whenever he would look at a gaping hole where the limb was no more.

He hummed a tune, his eyes now almost glassy with the ghost of past memories. At the same time, Ajax was letting out tiny squeals, licking his creased hands.

Little lost world

final mission

eighteen light years

in position now

summers back home were getting colder

thinking bout you

you're so much older now

It's a pretty long way

back to somewhere

forget all those dreams

there's no one out there now

It's a shame you got left behind

follow the sound

it's a shame there's no gravity

pulling me down

it's a shame at the end of time

to leave my only world behind

I guess it all ends here

like it started

Another big bang

and we're broken hearted now

at the end of this endless road

I will pull the trigger

on this violent payload now

cause when the whole thing's gone

without a trace

I'll be the last man in space

That was exactly who he was.

The last man in space, and time, lost as he was passing through those wonders of technique, all those self-driving cars, mobile phones, something that they called "selfie sticks", tablets and achievements that piled up while he was gone, cut off from the world.

Walter Bishop felt as if he had been frozen for at least a century and then carelessly unleashed and thrown upon the Planet Earth, to get by as he would see fit.

"Time has run us over, Gene."

He addressed the cow next who happily mooed back, lifting her huge black and white head from the portion of hay. "We are way past our usefulness."

Then a sly smile ran over his face, so similar to Peter's.

"But I was never a man of my time, albeit I was one of the future, so I should fit right in!"

People of the future were different too, more self-centred and more self-aware, surrounded by their little personality bubbles, hedonistic and blind for all other bubbles, for what it was worth.

There were selfless entities, for sure, that would instantly return his faith into humanity.

One of them was Agent Farnsworth. He glanced at her and smiled upon being able to hear her light snoring.

As per usual, Peter and Agent Dunham ran into the lab, then ran out of it and shouted to Astrid to "watch Walter". He was not a child. He would not be babied. He knew perfectly well what his next step was at any given moment in time. Right now, he was actually watching over her, thank you very much.

Thought of Olivia made him smile. Yet another selfless entity. Walter Bishop was glad to see the signs of admiration his boy showed towards her. Ever since the giant slug case, Walter was painfully aware how his son felt about Olivia. The mad scientist secretly hoped that she will be nothing but a positive influence on Peter.

Peter. He was a whole new universe of associations.

Peter bound him to his now late wife, and a strong sense of guilt. Joint guilt for what they did to Peter.

Other Peter.

And his own guilt for what he did to her. Lately, Peter was making sure that Walter would never forget that.

During the past seventeen years, Walter used to lay awake at night, surrounded with yapping yowls and inarticulate screams of his fellow inmates in the asylum, tossing and turning, wondering whether it was his responsibility. Her suicide.

Now he was alone, and the voices were gone. For the time being.

His bond with his estranged son was budding slowly yet progressing. He could feel the boy warming up to him and to what they did here.

Walter was thankful for that, for at least that silver lining in the bleakness that now surrounded him.

Even though he knew he had no right to Peter's love, he drank from its fount greedily, using it, replenishing his physical and mental faculties.

He didn't know whether he will ever be with a woman again, or love one, for that matter, but he had something in his life now.

A semblance of a family.

And he wasn't about to let that go. It was the only thing his mind was clinging to, the last barrier in front of the avalanche of the upcoming madness that would sometimes threaten to swallow him whole. Walter Bishop held his insanity at bay with sheer courage and cocktail of various medicines that no one who knew him would approve if they were aware of what he was taking.

The mirror swirled in front of him, now tripartite, or so it seemed to Walter, showing his past, the man he was now, and his future.

The image he could see reminded him of that Charles Dickens tale of the Three Ghosts that came to visit a stingy old man on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Carol was its name, Walter recalled.

Almost every man stands at least for some seconds in front of the mirror, Walter pondered. Thinking about who he is, who he was, and which way his life is going, what the next direction he will turn towards to is.

Yet this mirror was somehow different, special. Walter could literally feel energy streams lapping at his brain, like waves gently touching the sand, demanding that he come closer.

The object was also humming, faintly and for some reason, the old scientist could literally sense the presence of an empty space just behind the smooth silver surface.

It was looking for interaction, he was certain of it.

Was it how it would lure its previous victims, he wondered.

It must have altered both of their physical aspect and their behavioural patterns. It was quite and experiment and, inwardly, Walter silently bowed to the maker. Peter would not say where the mirror had come from but Walter wasn't blind.

He knew he was in front of a scientific pinnacle of humanity and he wondered how advanced the brain who concocted the concept must have been.

He wasn't certain whether it was even possible and why hide it, Walter was downright jealous.

His head was hurting a bit and he also started to feel the uncomfortable and strong desire to relieve himself.

"It's a good thing my pants are always down." he muttered to himself, as he stood up.

Ajax immediately followed, supervising the scientist as if he were a three-year-old child.

"Did Peter and Agent Dunham tell you to watch me as well? That's wonderful. Now I have two guardians, or so it seems." As Walter was staggering around the lab, trying not to trip and to remember where the devil the bathroom was, a vigorous knock was heard on the door.

Astrid murmured something under her breath and just went on sleeping.

The vigorous knock was heard again.

There was no escaping it, Walter knew he was supposed to answer the door and he hopped over to it in kangaroo style, pulling the handle towards himself in a brisk fashion.

What he saw blew him away.

A beautiful blonde girl with pallid blue eyes stood in front of him, looking a bit uncomfortable and bewildered.

Ajax immediately jumped towards her and started sniffing her between her legs.

She didn't seem to defend at all from his advances as she was too busy staring at Walter's crotch and at the pants around his ankles.

Right at the moment of realising it, Walter also became aware of his strong and painfully jutting erection.

"Oh, good afternoon, Miss…" he tried to soften the horrible first impression… "I don't recall ever hearing your name."

"It's Mirna. Mirna Statham" she chirped in a pleasant girly tone of voice and then added" and you might consider putting something on…Sir."

"Oh, this?" he pointed towards his hard pleasure instrument. "Nothing to worry about, Miss. It's just the normal reaction of the body at the sight of the exquisite female curves. I will get it under the control as soon as I manage to reallocate myself to the nearest bathroom and empty my bladder."

"Oh, my God. This is just like that one time when I walked in on my parents making out when I was a child" she started blabbing, unable to stop herself.

"That is an interesting, yet irrelevant detail" Walter pointed out mildly. "Why would you bring this up just now?"

"You could at least pull up your pants. And ooooh what a cute puppy! Come here little puppy" she pointed out, blushing strongly and then she cooed towards Ajax.

"Pull them up? I could, well, yes, I suppose I could, of course, though that would be counter-productive, wouldn't it, seeing how I am about to take a leak. Tinkle, you see? And what the devil does the dog have anything to do with anything? Are you here for the dog?" he was wondering if there was something wrong with this woman.

Why on Earth would he put his pants on when he was going to take them off in just under one minute anyway?

And why was she jumping from one topic to the other like that?

"I am here to see Agent Farnsworth. Is she here?"

"Asteroid? Yes, she is dozing off on one of those tables. If I were you, I would be careful about waking her up. She can get grumpy if she is shaken from her sleep. Can you now move from the door?" Walter was getting impatient as the feeling of his urethra exploding was becoming imminent.

"Are you…are you going to enter the hallway like that?"

"The bathroom is in the hallway. Miss, what is wrong with you?" he snapped, completely losing his patience. Walter's temper was hard to control, especially when his son wasn't around to rein him in.

"I just…I just think that is highly inappropriate" she replied, now trying to get past him.

"Unless you have an IQ higher than mine, I really don't care what you think" Walter eventually pushed her away grouchily and hopped towards the corridor.

On his way there, he realised his bladder wasn't the only thing he was going to empty.

"Darn it! I knew I should have brought some magazines with me! What am I going to read now whilst sitting on crapper for the next quarter of an hour!" he protested out loud gathering frightened looks from the lab employees. Then he staggered towards the bathroom which had an image of a little person wearing a skirt, without looking at the sign.

Ajax stirred him in the right direction towards the men's bathroom, as if he were herding a stubborn sheep.

 **ASTRID** opened her eyes, grumbling at all that racket she was hearing.

 _Can't I get at least a ten-minute shut eye? Is that so much to ask?_ Her inner self was protesting noisily. She never did say her complaints out loud because she didn't want to offend Olivia and Agent Broyles. She knew that Peter sometimes had to go on the field with Agent Dunham and Walter was still slowly regaining his mental faculties. There was no way he was going to be left alone in the lab.

Astrid could already see the disastrous effects of Walter being left to work without anyone's supervision and she shuddered with dread. Yet, when focused, she thought, Walter was accomplishing things she had never seen or heard before in her life.

She hoped he will be able to crack the case of the murderous mirror, or to at least figure out how it changed people.

Astrid knew she could learn a lot from the mad scientist, but only when he was in the mood to teach.

Or to speak to anyone.

Or fully dressed, for what it was worth.

The next thing that happened in transcended her wildest dreams. The beautiful long legged blue-eyed blonde ran towards her and hugged her with such strength Astrid thought her bones will crack.

"Agent Allison! I am so glad to see you!"

 _Oh. My. God. I can't believe this. It's Mirna. Mirna Statham alias Monroe, the way I called her from the moment I saw her. And she looks better than ever. I am so surprised that she managed to find me or to remember me, for that matter, that I will let the "Allison" slip up slide._

"Miss…Statham", she managed to stutter back. "What a lovely surprise. I really didn't expect to see you here."

"I was in a neighbourhood so I thought I'd stop by" Mirna said generously, rearranging her hair. "Everyone in Mission is talking about the FBI team and the lab they are currently occupying to solve a case so it wasn't that hard to find you."

After the initial blast of infatuation had faded away and Astrid came to, Walter was her first thought.

"Hey, have you seen…"

"A peculiar man with his pants down? I have, he just ran out the door with the cutest dog I have ever seen! He had this beautiful soft grey and white fur, and lovely light blue eyes and he seemed so smart! I have always wanted a dog like this but my parents were against that. I don't really know why, when everyone knows it's useful for a child to have a dog." Mirna went on and Astrid felt forced to interrupt her.

"Can you please focus just for the second? I really need to know where he went because…He is old and…He might get lost out there somewhere. He doesn't know the city that well" Astrid congratulated herself on a well fabricated lie. She wasn't about to tell just about anyone that Walter was a bit touched in the head.

"Oh, I think that he just went to the bathroom. But never mind him. You are mentioning him so much that I might just get jealous, my darling Agnes. I am here for you! Time is what life is made of, after all and I thought, why wait, when the mutual attraction was obvious from the get go!" her girly girl voice reached an unusually high pitch.

"Mutual…attraction…" Astrid muttered, not quite understanding what was going on.

It looked awfully like scenes that used to go through her head while she was sleeping but never while she was awake. Astrid needed to fully focus on the job and she knew very well it was forbidden to date a case witness.

"Yes!" the girl took step forward, overjoyed and exuberant, as she reached for Astrid once more and stuck her tongue between Astrid's lips. After several seconds of disbelief, Astrid just went for it.

 _What the heck. We only have one life,_ curly haired FBI junior agent thought.

They made out ferociously for several seconds, during which process Mirna started undressing incredibly fast.

"But… What about… the no-witness dating policy?" Astrid tried to fight in vain, her hands full of Mirna's boobs.

"Haven't you heard, darling? The case has been closed today! It's all over newspapers and I got an online notification. Your FBI agents discovered the culprit behind all this and we are assured the killings won't occur again." She simply stated and then proceeded to put her forefinger between Astrid's legs.

Just as things were about to get heated, Constable Murray strolled into the laboratory.

"This was a sad day. A sad day for us all." He stated sullenly, ill-tempered. "But at least now, we can think it is all over and behind us."

He froze still in his tracks, staring at the blonde, pale skinned girl and caramel skinned, dark haired girl making out, obviously in various state of undress in front of the gigantic mirror.

Murray didn't have the time to access the situation, nor the fact how he was intruding upon their privacy.

He lounged towards them both in a perfectly captured slow motion scream.

"Nooooooooooooo!" he yelped, jumping on the two girls and knocking them down on the floor, as far from the mirror as he could.

When Peter and Olivia stepped into the lab next, they could only see Murray lying intertwined with two handsome girls. Olivia covered her eyes but not before rolling them high up, while Peter couldn't refrain himself from commenting.

"Smooth operator. And here we were thinking that poor, naive Constable Murray couldn't get laid at all. Now, we find him all hot and bothered, surrounded by two girls. Inside the laboratory working space, no less."

"No" the man muttered, trying to get up from the floor and justifying himself. "You don't understand. They were undressing in front of the…Mirror and you know how dangerous that is!"

"Sure. Sure. Whatever you say, big fella." Peter just couldn't let it go. _Good call. If he hadn't walked in, something might have happened to Astrid and her…Girlfriend. I didn't know that particular detail about Agent Farnsworth's sexual preferences but I had my doubts. Still, I am having tooq much fun as it is._

To complete the whole scene, Walter strolled in, his pants yet again down to his ankles, with a pleading look in his eyes. The unbearable smell filled the lab.

"Oh, I see that the pleasant young lady has finally found Agent Farnsworth. Son, could you please help me out here. You see, I was going to piss but it turned out I had to go number two. There wasn't enough toilet paper for both things and I… Do you have some more paper, or a Kleenex?"

"Thank you for providing me with a detailed account of your toiletry habits, Walter. And, as always, in front of many nice people." His voice mellowed down as he noticed the horrible discomfort on his father's face. "Come on" Peter sighed. "Let's get you cleaned up." He caught Olivia's gaze and she cast a smile in his direction. There were many more of those to come his way, he suspected.

Agent Dunham turned towards the now red in face Constable Murray.

"I don't know what mirror you are talking about, but, it's time for us to go back to Boston. Thank you for your help on the case, Constable. We couldn't have done it without you" she smiled as he leaned to kiss her hand, both of them trying to ignore Astrid and Mirna who were now hastily getting dressed, telling each other they promise they would call and visit each other.

 **THE TWELVE** stared at the laboratory from the outside, standing in the street, lined up perfectly next to one another. The passers-by paid no attention to them. They thought the bald men were going to some kind of a comic book convention, or simply playing dress-up.

"It has been done. The Mirror has been taken away and it is soon to be destroyed." September emphasised every syllable as he slowly turned his head towards his fellow scientists.

"June has successfully fulfilled his mission." December nodded solemnly. "Without any emotional involvement. They will not remember this case, nor will the town."

"Timeline as it is supposed to be yet again." June confirmed. "Agent Astrid Farnsworth will marry Mirna Statham and they will adopt a girl who will study bioengineering at University of Oslo, Norway and posteriorly participate in our creation.

Walter Bishop will drive the dog away from his son with his obnoxious behaviour and Agent Broyles will proceed to gift a dog to his son Cristopher.

Ajax will save the boy from the potential death in a car accident. These are the events that will occur in the future, just as we programmed them to happen.

Windmark has failed yet again.

But we must continue to foil his plans as the Fringe Division fights on.

They are soon to discover the existence of the RedVerse and their reaction to such occurrence is to be closely monitored."

 **THE END**


End file.
